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In Today’s Open Letter

From 1% of retail to R130bn in 2025 – this is the rise of online in SA…

The year was 1994. The dream? Everyone will eventually buy everything online. 

In the US, it was a frenzy.

Overnight entrepreneurs spun up e-commerce companies in every category imaginable, rushing to listings on the NASDAQ to raise money for rapid expansion of fulfilment capability, tech and marketing.

Until very few people actually made the switch to online.

Catastrophe: The NASDAQ lost 80% of its value overnight, and it became known as the Dot-com bubble.

Back home in SA, media giant Naspers saw an opportunity… Use the media space it owns to promote its online store, Kalahari.com. But even with enormous media spend, Kalahari couldn’t crack it and eventually merged with Takealot. RIP kalahari.com.

Fast forward to 2025 and probably for the first time ever in SA, e-commerce is starting to become a serious contender. In fact, a recent online commerce report by World Wide Worx reveals that e-commerce makes up roughly 10% (R130 billion) of all retail in SA, up from 1% a decade ago. That’s an average spend of R356m a day

The era of willingness to buy online in SA is finally here – and we’re excited for it. 

Why? Because of what it could enable smaller businesses/startups to do. Building a traditional brick and mortar business from the ground up is incredibly risky, complicated and expensive. 

But for many, starting a side-hustle e-commerce store is viable.

What are people buying online?

It’s no surprise that Sixty60 is a dominant player in online commerce, reporting R18.9 billion in annual sales recently, almost 15% of all online retail.

And all of the grocery online retailers saw good growth as well. Pick n Pay’s online turnover rose 60% in FY2024. Woolies Dash grocery deliveries grew 49%. With so much heat in the grocery space, it’s no wonder that Amazon has also launched its grocery, pet food and health supplements sections.

Startups like Refreshi and still good are also capitalising on this trend to order food online, and both have seen great growth.

The global contenders

But it’s not only groceries causing the boom. Temu and Shein captured 40% of online fashion sales (R7.3 billion), establishing a culture of buying clothes online. They did face some headwinds from changes in taxation and tighter import controls, but still, the growth of the market means more people are keen to buy clothes online. 

This is good for the local players, especially niche brands such as Old School, Burnt and Freedom of Movement that have great online activity, leading to expanded physical footprints.

A growing market also bodes well for local pre-loved fashion marketplaces like Yaga and startup Thrif.

What does the next few years look like?

Well, e-commerce players are optimistic about growth, with 74% of retailers saying they are profitable online and nearly half expecting growth between 41%-60%.

Let’s face it, the people who were kids in the 90s and thought e-commerce was a cool idea are all grown up now and earn money.

So sometimes an idea just needs a generation to mature for it to take off. We think that’s exactly what happened here…

If you want to download the whole report, head on over to the link.

PS: If e-commerce is your thing, be sure to check out our Friday e-commerce feature section, where we feature local e-commerce startups making waves. And, if you’re building an e-commerce store, hit reply and let us know to get featured…

Who still thinks customer service is a phone queue?

During lockdown, DIY store Leroy Merlin SA missed 90% of customer requests because they couldn’t take calls off-site. Moving to omnichannel with WhatsApp helped them claw back satisfaction scores as agents handled 20k tickets a month across home, store and contact centre.

The potential is endless:

✅ Status-triggered WhatsApp messages
✅ Chat management at scale
✅ Bulk WhatsApp campaigns

Because in South Africa, WhatsApp is the CX platform hiding in plain sight.

What would you build on WhatsApp today?

🚢 WC’s Cruise Boom. Last season’s boat cruise economy added a R1.79 billion boost to the Western Cape's GDP and created 1’200 local jobs, with 18% more ships than the previous year. Wow, when does next season start?

🔍 Join The Club. Google's parent company, Alphabet, just hit the $3-trillion market cap mark, joining Apple, Nvidia and Microsoft in this very exclusive top-of-the-techs club. Goodness gracious.

⚡ Badge of Honour. Ookla is rolling out Speedtest Certified to stamp approval on stellar internet spots like hotels and airports. Valid for a year before you need to get re-certified, looks like venues are gonna need to up their WiFi game.

👽 Mars Hints at Life. The Perseverance rover’s sample from Jezero Crater indicates some biosignatures in its “Sapphire Canyon” sample from the “Cheyava Falls” rock, but further studies of the sample are required. Quick Q: Where will this further study be taking place?

✅ The Stack. Founders need reliable tools and suppliers. That’s why our Founder’s Stack gives you the best in IP offshoring and global market access with Finance Isle of Man, all your VC and startup legal sorted by Dommisse Attorneys, and loads more vital startup tools & services.

Yesterday, we showed you how Viro Solutions is reimagining sustainable restaurant packaging, asking what would make you smile. Most want coffee cups that grow…

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 📱 QR code that says “This box had a past life” (17%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 👕 Burger box you can fold into a T-shirt (2%)

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🪴 Coffee cup that doubles as a seed pot (55%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 📦 Takeaway box that unfolds into a board game (11%)

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 😂 Honest label: “You’ll keep this leftover container for 7 years” (15%)

Your 2 cents…

True Nikita, we want to see it sprout leaves and grow. 🌱

Awesome, Ribbon, sure Viro Solutions will love to hear that! 🌻

Funding-ready SMEs: Investec & Outsourced CFO Accelerator now open. Apply here.

Engineering breakthrough: Africa Prize offers £85k + support. Apply before 23 Sept.

Raise $50’000: MEST Africa Challenge 2025 open till 26 Sept. Enter here.

Women-led startups: Naspers & Prosus FoundHER Africa Challenge offers $100k. Apply before 19 Nov.

Want to promote your event/programme here? Let us know.

🛠 Tool to Try: Your Next Store lets you build and launch an online store in minutes (Vercel + Stripe, no plugin bloat).

🤔 That’s Interesting: China retired its last steam freight railway in 2022. Now, only North Korea and Bosnia still run non-heritage steam trains.

🔥 Next Level: This insane Pirates of the Caribbean float at the Zundert Flower Parade (Holland).

🍔 Hack: In-depth info without WiFi? See how to download Wikipedia for offline access.

🌐 Wow Site: In honour of the “did dashes exist before GPT” debate, behold: a website that’s just… an em dash.

Hey, Renier here 👋, co-founder of The Open Letter.

I’ve spent 17 years in SA tech and seen hundreds of startups rise and fall. The ones that made it all had one thing in common: a strong community.

That’s why I started The Founder Collab — a space where 100+ SA founders connect for:

☕ Meetups & events

🎓 Weekly masterclasses

📚 35+ expert sessions on-demand

🤝 A network unlike anything else

Come build your startup alongside me and 100+ other SA founders in The Founder Collab.

Spaces are limited — new founders join weekly.

Help us make The Open Letter more useful to you.

Vote in the poll, leave a quick comment, or hit reply — we read every single one.