It is very easy to start an eCommerce business in South Africa, and one of the major benefits of starting one is that you don't need to spend a lot of money to do that.
Interestingly, there are lots of useful resources to help you to get great business ideas in South Africa and even at the global level. With this guide, you can research and take action on your plans for your new South African ecommerce business, which is one of the major parts of starting an eCommerce shop in South Africa and in any part of the world.
However, this post will focus on the right steps you need to take when starting an eCommerce business in South Africa and how you can market your products in order to reach out to the right people who want to buy from you online in South Africa.
Starting An Ecommerce Business In South Africa Table of Contents
Lets see how Shopify compare to other ecommerce platforms out there.
Name | Rating | Established | Head Office |
---|---|---|---|
Shopify | 9.9 | 2006 | Ottawa, Canada |
Shopify Plus | 9.8 | 2006 | Ottawa, Canada |
WooCommerce | 9.7 | 2005 | San Francisco, CA |
Volusion | 9.7 | 1999 | Austin, TX |
3dcart | 9.7 | 1997 | Tamarac, FL |
Big Cartel | 9.7 | 2005 | Salt Lake City, UT |
Ecwid | 9.7 | 2009 | Encinitas, CA |
Ecomchain | 9.6 | 2001 | Frisco, TX |
Kooomo | 9.6 | 2000 | Dublin, Ireland |
Contalog | 9.6 | 2008 | Chennai, Tamil Nadu |
PayMotion | 9.6 | 2019 | Victoria, Canada |
Upclick | 9.6 | 2006 | Montreal, Canada |
*please check with the vendors directly for the latest pricing.
Name | Price | Duration |
---|---|---|
Shopify | $29 - $299 | Per month, Per month, Per month, |
Shopify Plus | $29 - $299 | Per month, Per month, Per month, |
WooCommerce | $0 - $99 | Per month, Per month, Per month, Per month, Per year, Per year, Per year, |
Volusion | $RequestPricing - $RequestPricing | |
3dcart | $29 - $299 | Per month, |
Big Cartel | $9.99 - $Free | Per month, Per month, Per month, |
Ecwid | $0 - $99 | Per month, Per month, Per month, Per month, Per year, Per year, Per year, |
Ecomchain | $RequestPricing - $RequestPricing | |
Kooomo | $RequestPricing - $RequestPricing | |
Contalog | $99 - $299 | Per month, Per month, Per month, |
PayMotion | $1.7 - $1.7 | one-time/user, |
Upclick | $36.16 - $36.16 | Per month, |
Name |
---|
Shopify Features
|
Shopify Plus Features
|
WooCommerce Features
|
Volusion Features
|
3dcart Features
|
Big Cartel Features
|
Ecwid Features
|
Ecomchain Features
|
Kooomo Features
|
Contalog Features
|
PayMotion Features
|
Upclick Features
|
Customer service is very important when using a ecommerce like Shopify.
When investing in and dealing with a ecommerce for your business, timely customer support is essential.
Customer service includes assistance in installation, training, troubleshooting, upgrading, and cancellation of a product or service.
Your ecommerce solution should offer customer support that includes Phone answering services, Live chat support and Email customer service support.
Shopify and Shopify Plus offer support where clients are able to call or contact the helpdesk via email or a chat service.
Name | Support Rating | Support | Languages |
---|---|---|---|
Shopify | 8.4 | Phone, Email | English |
Shopify Plus | 8.5 | Phone, Email, Live Chat | Danish, German, English, Finnish, French, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional) |
WooCommerce | 7.4 | Phone, Email | Afrikaans, Arabic, Danish, German, English, Finnish, French, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Dutch, Norwegian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Chinese (Simplified) |
Volusion | 7.3 | Phone, Email, | English |
3dcart | 8.4 | Phone, Email, Live Chat | English |
Big Cartel | 8.1 | Phone, Email | English |
Ecwid | 9.6 | Phone, Email | German, English, French, Indonesian, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish |
Ecomchain | 9.7 | Phone, Email | Arabic, German, English, French, Gujarati, Hindi, Italian, Latin, Malayalam, Nepali, Punjabi, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Urdu, Chinese (Simplified) |
Kooomo | 9.4 | Phone, Email, Live Chat | Xhosa, Tonga (Tonga Islands), Samoan, Maori, Maltese, Fijian, Tibetan, Chinese (Simplified), Vietnamese, Uzbek, Urdu, Ukrainian, Turkish, Thai, Telugu, Tatar, Tamil, Swedish, Swahili, Serbian, Albanian, Spanish, Slovenian, Slovak, Russian, Romanian, Quechua, Portuguese, Polish, Punjabi, Norwegian, Dutch, Nepali, Malay, Mongolian, Macedonian, Marathi, Malayalam, Lithuanian, Latvian, Latin, Korean, Central Khmer, Georgian, Japanese, Italian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Armenian, Hungarian, Croatian, Hindi, Hebrew, Gujarati, Irish, French, Finnish, Persian, Basque, Estonian, English, Greek, German, Danish, Welsh, Czech, Catalan, Bulgarian, Bengali, Arabic, Afrikaans |
Contalog | 10.0 | Phone, Email | English |
PayMotion | 10.0 | Phone, Email | Arabic, Czech, Danish, German, Greek, English, Finnish, French, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Dutch, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Vietnamese, Chinese (Simplified) |
Upclick | 4.0 | Phone, Email | English |
Ensure that the ecommerce solution you decide upon provides the exact range of tools your organisation needs. Check ECOMMERCE is a good fit for your business.
The best ecommerce software for South African ecommerce business owners is Shopify. Shopify is a ecommerce software company that serves South Africa business oweners and customers. Shopify specialises in ecommerce software for small to enterprise level businesses.
Scroll down to read our indepth Starting An Ecommerce Business In South Africa guide. What you should know, Starting An Ecommerce Business In South Africa features, price plans and support. Pros and Cons of Starting An Ecommerce Business In South Africa as a ecommerce, everything is explained below.
An important factor for business owners to consider when looking for a Ecommerce like Shopify is the support and educational resources the Ecommerce platform can offer.
Choose a ecommerce that is considered an industry-leader with a well tested and well known software platform.
If you are thinking of using the Shopify platform you will need to know that Shopify is ecommerce that you can rely on.
Overall rating | 84% |
Support Rating | 88% |
Setup Rating | 84% |
Price Plan | Price | Price Plan Duration |
Basic | $29 | Per month |
Professional | $79 | Per month |
unlimited | $299 | Per month |
Overall rating | 85% |
Support Rating | 88% |
Setup Rating | 85% |
Price Plan | Price | Price Plan Duration |
Mid-Market | $29 | Per month |
Enterprise | $79 | Per month |
$299 | Per month |
Overall rating | 74% |
Support Rating | 88% |
Setup Rating | 74% |
Price Plan | Price | Price Plan Duration |
Small-Business | $0 | Per month |
Mid-Market | $15 | Per month |
Enterprise | $35 | Per month |
$99 | Per month |
Overall rating | 73% |
Support Rating | 88% |
Setup Rating | 73% |
Price Plan | Price | Price Plan Duration |
Mini | Request Pricing | |
Plus | ||
Pro | unknown | |
Premium | unknown | |
unknown |
Overall rating | 84% |
Support Rating | 88% |
Setup Rating | 84% |
Price Plan | Price | Price Plan Duration |
3dcart BASIC | $29 | Per month |
3dcart PLUS | $299 | |
3dcart PRO | ||
3dcart Enterprise | unknown | |
unknown |
Overall rating | 81% |
Support Rating | 88% |
Setup Rating | 81% |
Price Plan | Price | Price Plan Duration |
Titanium | Free | Per month |
Diamond | $9.99 | Per month |
Platinum | $19.99 | Per month |
Gold | $29.99 | |
Overall rating | 96% |
Support Rating | 88% |
Setup Rating | 96% |
Price Plan | Price | Price Plan Duration |
Free | $0 | Per month |
VENTURE | $15 | Per month |
BUSINESS | $35 | Per month |
UNLIMITED | $99 | Per month |
$12.50 | Per year |
Overall rating | 97% |
Support Rating | 88% |
Setup Rating | 97% |
Price Plan | Price | Price Plan Duration |
Small-Business | Request Pricing | |
Mid-Market | ||
unknown |
Overall rating | 94% |
Support Rating | 88% |
Setup Rating | 94% |
Price Plan | Price | Price Plan Duration |
Small-Business | Request Pricing | |
Mid-Market | ||
Enterprise | unknown | |
unknown |
Overall rating | 100% |
Support Rating | 88% |
Setup Rating | 100% |
Price Plan | Price | Price Plan Duration |
Basic Terms | $99 | Per month |
Small Terms | $199 | Per month |
Growing Terms | $299 | Per month |
Overall rating | 100% |
Support Rating | 88% |
Setup Rating | 100% |
Price Plan | Price | Price Plan Duration |
Small-Business | 1.7 | one-time/user |
Mid-Market | ||
Enterprise | unknown | |
unknown |
Overall rating | 40% |
Support Rating | 88% |
Setup Rating | 40% |
Price Plan | Price | Price Plan Duration |
Small-Business | 36.16 | Per month |
Mid-Market | ||
Enterprise | unknown | |
unknown |
Research is the first thing to do when starting an eCommerce business in South Africa. By carrying out research, you won't be working off a hunch; because running an eCommerce business in South Africa is an investment you have to take seriously. Hence you have to carry out research about the eCommerce model you want to use for marketing your South African product to your audience in the South African and other parts of the world.
There is no particular business model that works for all business types, so before choosing a product for your South African business online business, you have to know the different business models available, and that's one of the benefits of carrying out research before starting an eCommerce business in South Africa.
If you have a slim budget and you don't want to handle and store your product for your South African audience or spend much when starting your business in South Africa, dropshipping could be a good business model for you.
On the other hand, if you like the idea of having your own warehouse storing your products in South Africa or else where, that means you will be investing more money from the start. So, it is left for you to decide how to start your South African eCommerce business online. Note that you have to sort out things like shipping and delivery in South Africa and internationally when you sell products online using ecommerce.
Before starting an eCommerce business in South Africa, you have to decide the business model to use for your South African eCommerce shop.
Pick a product niche for your South African eCommerce business. This is among the most crucial parts when starting an eCommerce business in South Africa. Don't just start by selling anything or everything to your online audience in South Africa; make sure to carry out research in order to know what to sell, your South African audience and how to communicate, their favorite hangout spots like Tiktok, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc., and other important factors that will help you to market your online products to them in South Africa.
There are resourceful tools online to help you with this part when starting your South African brand, like Google Trends. You can use it to know the number of people that are looking for your product in the South African and beyond, then you can decide to pick or do extra research to know what you have in the South African market and how your product will help your South African customers more than your competitors' product.
After the first two parts, it is now time to choose the right product for your South African and international audience. Finding the right product in your niche can be a challenging task for most business owners and entrepreneurs in the South African, but you don't need to worry again when it comes to this part, as there are lots of tools online to help you with this process.
So, after choosing a niche, you can use the same tool, "Google Trends," to find out more about the different products people are looking for in that niche. So, go ahead and choose a niche that South African audience will find interesting. Note that you can also specify the location to South Africa you want to use Google trends.
If you want to present the right product to your South African and international audience, you have the best selling product and how to present your products to them online with your South African ecommerce store.
So, before starting an eCommerce business in South Africa, you need to take this part seriously as it will help you to take the right part when starting your eCommerce business in the South African and other parts of the world.
After the research, the next phase will be to know your target audience. You can start your South African business without knowing your target audience. There are things you need to know about your audiences, like their location in the South Africa and other parts of the world, their age group, their gender, and other important factors that will help you when targeting them with Google and Facebook ads in South Africa.
So, before starting your South African eCommerce business, study your audience. This way, you can present the right product to them using the right channel and messages.
The next stage after studying your South African audience is to look for where to get your products from for your online ecommerce business in South Africa. There are lots of places to source your products online internationally and in South Africa; however, you have to be careful while choosing suppliers when getting your products to sell. Especially offshore manufacturers and suppliers that are not in South Africa.
For example, if you want to get your product from a particular vendor, check the review and comments from previous customers from South Africa they have on their website. You can as well use Google my business to learn more about the shop you want to source your products from for your online shop in South Africa.
Go ahead and choose a name for your South African business. While at it, be sure to choose a name that relates to the product or service you are offering to your South African and international customers. It is advisable to use the same business name as your domain name. Hence, when choosing a business name for your South African business, check if it is available online as a domain name. A simple search with with a web hosting platform in South Africa will help you to know if the name is available.
The next step for setting up your South African online business is to design a logo for your business. This part is very easy with the help of some online tools for creating logos available online in South Africa. However, you can outsource it to a freelancer to help you.
Once you have setup your ecommerce store and people in South Africa are able to buy from it. It is time to learn the basics of SEO; the knowledge you have here will help you to structure your site for Google and other search engines to index your South African site. So it appears on search engines in South Africa.
SEO is not rocket science, and you don't need a lot of resources to learn it before applying what you learn to your South African online business. Hence, when starting an eCommerce business in South Africa, don't skip this part as it will help you to know how to structure your business for your South African and global customers with your website.
After learning the basics about SEO, you can go ahead and create your South African eCommerce shop. This is one of the best stages when starting an eCommerce business in South Africa. This process is very simple with the use of some website builders. However, you can choose any website builder based on the type of business you want to set up in the South Africa.
The importance of using a website builder for your South African eCommerce shop is that it removes the need for having a developer handle your South African eCommerce shop. Hiring a development programming team can be very costly and take many months. Online ecommerce website builders can have a fully functionaly ecommerce site online in South Africa in 1-2 days.
On the other hand, if you have a large budget for your South African business and the time, you can start by using the service of website developers to design a professional website for your South African eCommerce business. Irrespective of what you pick, be sure to have an intuitive and user-friendly website for your South African eCommerce business.
There are numerous marketing methods you can use to promote your South African eCommerce business, and this includes the following:
This is one of the best marketing methods for promoting your South African eCommerce website, and it is advisable to start your email list once you start running your South African eCommerce shop.
There are different strategies for getting your South African customers' email addresses, and one of the best methods is by giving out useful information to your audience in exchange for their email addresses. Email lists in South Africa have to be opt in. You can only email people in South Africa who have agreed to recieve your messages. This method works out perfectly well and while you use it to grow your South African online business, make sure to provide useful information to your audience in South Africa instead of trying to sell your product to them once you have their email address.
Social media marketing is one of the best methods of creating brand awareness and promoting your new South African ecommerce business to your target audience. You'll make good use of this method if you understand your international and South African audience. So, with the data you have from studying your audience and the market, you can use popular social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, Facebook and Twitter.
If you study your South African customers very well, you'll be able to know what resonates with them in South Africa (This will help you to create the right content for them). Find out places where they hang out the most online in South Africa (i.e., the social media platform they use the most), how they consume content, and how to create something that will resonate with them and make them buy from your South African online ecommerce store.
When starting an eCommerce business in South Africa, make sure you don't skip the research, as it will save you buying stock you cannot sell and paying for ecommerce adverts that do not convert well in South Africa.
Content creation is one of the major parts you have to pay attention to when running an online store in the South African or from any part of the world. And that's where blogging and SEO come into play.
With your ecommerce blog, you can create content and attract visitors to your South African eCommerce website organically. A blog also allows you to get your South African customers' email addresses, so a blog is important for creating your ecommerce email list. When starting an eCommerce business in South Africa, being able to scale up your business with content is a very cost effective way to generate sales from your audience in South Africa. The problem in ecommerce blogging and seo takes time, it can be 6 months to 2 years and you need to produce articles regularly on your South African ecommerce shop.
On the other hand, blogging will give your South African customers a reason to visit your site and, at the same time, help your ecommerce shop to rank high on search engines in South Africa.
So, make sure to always create content for your ecommerce shops blog if you want to grow your South African audience and business. When creating content for your audience, use common keywords they use while looking for your product online to create content aimed for your South African and global audience. This will help Google and other search engines to index your site in South Africa and make it visible to your South African customers when they are looking for a product you offer.
To make things easy for you as a South African business owner, you can outsource the content creation to a freelancer. In today's online digital space, there are different types of content you need to create for your South African and international ecommerce audience apart from article text content, and this includes; video, graphics, and audio content.
It is very important to use Facebook ads or Google Ads to promote your ecommerce business internationally and in South Africa, mostly when starting your business. This will help you to create awareness in South Africa and also reach a large audience who is interested potentially in buying your product.
Facebook and Google adverts help South African ecommerce owners to choose the right audience, location, and other important factors that will help you to make more sales in South Africa. So, don't taking the time to learn the Facebook and Google ad platforms when marketing your product to your customers in the South African and other parts of the world.
There are lots of benefits you'll get by using online marketing methods for your South African ecommerce business. You can choose to market your South African business to a South African audience alone or to prospects interested in your ecommerce products from other parts of the world. So, make a budget for running Facebook or Google ads when starting an eCommerce business in South Africa in order to reach a large audience and make more sales.
Shopify is the best Ecommerce solution by overall rating based on price, support and feature set.
Shopify is the cheapest Ecommerce Ecommerce solution, price plans start at $29 and goes all the way up too $299 depending on the plan.
Some Ecommerce Ecommerce providers offer free plans, but its best to go with a provider that 100% is able to fulfill your needs rather than go cheap. Especially for your business.
The most popular Ecommerce solutions are Shopify, Shopify Plus, WooCommerce, Volusion. This is measured by number of active users and overall rating.
Read our detailed ecommerce reviews below.
If you feel some of the above ecommerce solutions are not quiet what you are looking for or perhaps you would just like to see some alternatives. See our highly rated list of ecommerce below.
You can read some of our Ecommerce side by side vs page comparisons.
From us to your inbox weekly.