WATCH | Social selling and Gen Z: How eCommerce leads to business growth

The Covid-19 pandemic saw a huge boom in the e-commerce sector, with online sales increasing by 66% in South Africa in 2020. Now, we have entered a new e-commerce realm that has evolved to incorporate social media, virtual skins and much more more digitisation. 

 All these new changes may seem daunting and difficult to implement in a business, but according to trends expert Dion Chang, there are things firms can do to successfully navigate the post-pandemic e-commerce age.

In the second season of the expert talk series Ahead of the Curve, Chang gives a snapshot of the retail landscape in South Africa in his talk, looking at the following trends:

• More than $1billion in investment in Fintech startups in Africa;
• Social selling, or selling via your social media;
• Dark advertising;
• Ghost retailers.

As our lives continue to move online, Fintech companies continue to grow. According to Forbes in 2021 a whopping $133 billion was poured into Fintech startups worldwide. Within an African context, a substantial growth in Fintech startups speaks to the importance of looking at retail in a digitised way on the continent. 

"In South Africa, you've had a 65% adoption of people moving online for the first time. In East and West Africa, you see now that 30 or 40% of people are now very, very accustomed or comfortable with shopping online. But more importantly is the investment in young Fintech startup companies. Since 2021, there's been a remarkable almost 900% growth of investment in these Fintech companies. That equates to about $1.5 billion for the African continent," says Chang.

 Gen Z and social selling

The continued growth in e-commerce and Fintech has also ushered in the evolution of e-commerce through the concept of social selling - selling goods via social media. 

Social selling aims to target the plugged in ‘Gen Z’ and aims to create a seamless user experience all in the comfort of your favourite social media platform.

"What social selling is trying to do is to eliminate all of those steps and make it one fluid movement without leaving the same platform, which is a real challenge to do. There are only a few companies in Asia that have really been able to do this via their super apps. So you stay within one platform as one Gen Z shopper put it, I've engaged with my brand or your brand, on Instagram, why can't I finish the entire transaction without leaving that platform?" he asks rhetorically. Watch the video for more on this point.

 Dark advertising

The evolution of e-commerce hasn’t only taken place on the backend. There has also been some developments in advertising with concepts like dark advertising or dark marketing which nudge you into online purchases without even noticing.

"These are adverts target very, very specific to your demographic, to the time at which you are on a platform and really specified to what your needs and likes really are. Because we have all of these new algorithms at our disposal, what you are starting to see is that companies are able to really zone in on your likes, your dislikes, your demographics, and even the time of day when you will be most relaxed to be able to see that advert," explains Chang.

Other trends Chang notes include ‘ghost retailing’ which are companies that provide a physical presence for online-only businesses. They'll open a small shop that’s not a pop-up but rather a real store that offers you that presence in the real world.

As for the future of e-commerce, Chang says you need only look to a 10 or 12-year-old to see how much brands are engraining brand loyalty into their future buyers through the virtual games they play.

 Banking options

In order to stay ahead of the curve, businesses need to find partners that embrace their eCommerce options. An example of this is Nedbank’s super app Avo - a curated e-commerce platform, which has built-in functionality, enables merchants to quickly and efficiently access an e-commerce value chain with relatively low investment – rather than building their own - and gives access to a built-in market of more than 450 000 customers in new geographies.

"Avo brings customers and businesses together, accurately matching their lifestyle needs to product and service offerings through powerful artificial intelligence, safe and secure payments, and bank-grade security," says Herman de Kock, Executive Head of Sales and Service at Nedbank Commercial Banking.

Partner with Nedbank Commercial Banking to move your business into the next digital age and learn about Avo HERE.