Cheryl Hunter (shelflife at marklives.com)’s weekly pick of all things new — ads, product, packaging, design, insight, food, décor and more!
Ecommerce experience
Gone are the days of ecommerce sites being foreign to most South Africans; with 18.43m current ecommerce users in South Africa and this figure expected to grow to 22.32m by 2020 (Statistica), many retailers need to adapt their strategies to grab a piece of the estimated R37bn annual pie.
Rent-to-own specialist, Teljoy, which has taken itself completely online, allows consumers to rent a range of household appliances, furniture and electronics, with the option to take ownership after a predetermined rental period.
According to Melissa Workman, Teljoy digital marketing coordinator, consumers are increasingly looking for an experience: “Shoppers are also becoming increasingly savvy in their buying. They’re searching around for the best bargains, getting what they want, and getting out. So, websites need to be easily navigable. People should be able to find the product they want quickly and easily, and the paypoints should be simple. This increasing personalised approach will require AI as this tech will help to customise a shopper’s experience.”
Social media has also become an increasingly important platform for South African ecommerce brands to engage on, as many consumers rely on this social content to make them feel at ease before proceeding to shop online: “As an ecommerce brand, you should be monitoring your conversion rates on a daily basis, and strive to continuously improve the overall online experience of your brand for your target market. With more brands entering the ecommerce market and striving to get ecommerce right, ecommerce is set to bring about big change in South Africa in the years to come.”
Convenience and accessibility are vital to making a decision on whether or not to purchase a product online. With many South African online retailers continuously finding ways to improve their sites, marketers need to pay close attention to the data received from their sites and ensure they tailor their messaging and offers to targeted consumers through all online channels.
Workman adds that it’s important to remember that not all South Africans have access to a laptop or a scanning facility, so easy methods need to be implemented to assist the consumer in their application process, such as a ‘send to WhatsApp’ option.
teljoy.co.za • Facebook • Twitter
Kiswahili leads #AfricanLanguagesDay
Pan-African digital agency, eNitiate, has launched a social media campaign, #AfricanLanguagesDay, ahead of Africa Day on 25 May 2018, to highlight the unfair treatment many African languages face on social media.
It’s even easier, now that we got @Twitter to include #Kiswahili in its language translation app :)#AfricanLanguagesDay #May25IsAroundTheCorner pic.twitter.com/9Yblqpkfxh
— African Languages Day (@AfriLanguages) May 7, 2018
Says BraWilly Seyama, founder of eNitiate, “Some of the biggest languages from the continent are not included in language lists of the popular social networks and are thus mis-indexed.”
#AfricanLanguagesDay is a campaign that encourages 300m Africans on social media across the world to post exclusively in their native languages on social networks on 25 May and beyond. Seyama says the key objective is to get all the main social networks to add the top 10 native African languages in their language translation applications.
The campaign kicked off in February as a buildup to Africa Day, and this month Twitter indexed Kiswahili, the largest native African language with over 100m speakers overall. This is the first language of African origin that is now recognised on the microblogging platform.
#AfricanLanguagesDay • Facebook • Twitter
enitiate.solutions • Facebook • Twitter • Instagram
Shelf Life is MarkLives.com’s weekly column covering all things new. Notify us of yours at shelflife at marklives dot com. Want to sponsor Shelf Life? Contact us here.
Cheryl Hunter (@cherylhunter) has written for the South African media, marketing and advertising industries for more than 15 years. A former editor of M&M in Independent Newspapers and contributor to Bizcommunity, AdFocus, AdReview and the Ad Annual, she has also produced for various television networks and currently consults on communication strategy and media liaison.
— One subscription form, three newsletters: sign up now for the MarkLives newsletter, including Ramify headlines; The Interlocker, our new monthly comms-focused mailer; and Brands & Branding, launching soon!