Loot gears up for Black Friday shopping spree
policies to discuss in some countries in Africa in which oil plays a prominent role in the economy.
“I believe what we are doing here in the southern tip of Africa is starting that process. We were proud to be nominated by Moody’s as the fastest growing green economy in the world last year in November. That was on the back of a major investment drive by our country to look at renewable resources and in this province we are working very hard.
“Today we have over 3 000 independent power producers, just putting power in the City of Cape Town alone.”
Winde said that the Western Cape was also suffering from climate change and was in the third year of drought, which was putting huge pressure on agricultural jobs.
“But as the premier said, we’ve got Project Khulisa, which looks at how do we extract better value in jobs and the economy from agriculture, adding value to agricultural products through agri-processing and accessing new markets.
“But at the same time climate change is putting pressure on us. But it is also a massive opportunity for us. We’ve done a lot of work with our universities and our Department of Agriculture and industry.
“We have a programme called Smart Agri – this is the kind of programme where we are learning to farm with nature and farm while we have these pressures.”
Tim Harris, chief executive at Wesgro, Cape Town and the Western Cape’s tourism, trade and investment promotion agency, said agri-processing was a key strategic priority of the Western Cape government’s Project Khulisa, and that Wesgro housed the Agribusiness Investment Unit, supported by the Western Cape Department of Agriculture.
“Our trade team also works hard to assist exporters in the agricultural sector access international markets. In the 2016/17 financial year, Wesgro’s Agribusiness Investment Unit helped facilitate over R700 million of investment in the sector. I am proud to say we have already helped secure committed investments amounting to R566m in the current financial year in challenging economic conditions.” ONLINE retailer loot.co.za is anticipating sales growth of up to 100% during the upcoming Black Friday weekend, after growth of more than 150% last year.
Loot chief executive Gary Hadfield said loot would be offering up to 80% off on a selection of products.
“We have done significant product buy-ins to ensure that the majority of sale items will be in stock at our regional warehouses. Our Black Friday sale will start just after midnight on the 24th and continue until midnight on the 27th.” Loot would add deals every day during this period, he said.
He said the retailer achieved yearon-year revenue growth of 165% last year and was expecting sales growth of 70% to 100% this year.
“The October-to-December festive season is a very important period for us and is defined by successful Black Friday trading.
“In preparation for Black Friday, we ensured that our new Cape Town Airport Industria warehouse was operational by October. This has dramatically increased our storage capacity and ability to handle increased volumes.”
Hadfield said the retailer’s Midrand warehouse, which opened at the end of last year, was operating very efficiently.
Hadfield said the retailer had added more payment methods since last year’s Black Friday and now offered 13 payment options.
“In 2016, Black Friday saw a significant increase in sales across online and offline retailers, which caused certain payment options to crash. These 13 options are not only convenient, but should also mitigate some of that risk. The more recent options include RCS and Mobicred, which allows products to be bought on credit.”
He said another option was SCode, which allows shoppers to pay for their orders with cash and credit/debit cards at outlets such as Shoprite and Checkers money kiosks, as well as post offices.
“When the shopper clicks to pay with SCode, the shopper receives an SMS with a 16-digit code that is presented at these kiosks for payment. Once they have made payment, loot receives a real-time notification that automatically triggers the order and subsequent delivery.”
Hadfield said worldwide retail e-commerce sales would reach $2.29 trillion (R32.2trln) this year, comprising 10.1% of total retail sales. This was set to exceed 16% by 2021, when retail e-commerce sales would double to reach $4.479trln.
He said that in South Africa total retail sales were worth about R1trln, of which online retail sales constituted between 1% and 2%.
“Globally, events like Amazon’s Prime Day, Alibaba’s Single’s Day and the Big Billion event in India are becoming key catalysts in making online shopping more interesting and getting more shoppers online.”