The 7th annual South African eCommerce Awards sheds some light on how far eCommerce in South Africa has come. Websites are in tune with the increasing demands of this growing industry and are raising their standards year on year.

The South African eCommerce Awards congratulates the Winners in the 2012 South African eCommerce Awards for their contributions to powering eCommerce in South Africa forward, and would like to give recognition and commend all the participating websites for their contributions to the eCommerce industry.

The Winners in the 2012 South African eCommerce Awards:

• Yuppiechef winner of the Best eCommerce Store Award
• Bidorbuy winner of the Best eCommerce Services Website Award
• Groupon South Africa winner of the Best Group Buying Website Award
• Property24 winner of the Best Classifieds Website Award
• TravelGround winner of the Best Design, Standards & Ease of use Award
• Yuppiechef winner of the Best Shopping Process Award
• HomeChoice winner of The Public’s Favourite eCommerce Website Award

The award for the Public’s Favourite eCommerce Website motivated websites and their communities to get involved and have their voices heard and websites were encouraged to engage with their communities to gain public votes. The South African eCommerce Awards incentivised the voting by offering one lucky voter the chance to win a New Apple iPad.

Over 114 000 unique public votes were received in just one month. The top 5 websites are HomeChoice, Takealot.com, Bidorbuy, kalahari.com and Zando.

The South African eCommerce Awards partnered with independent design company Druff Interactive to assess the websites in terms of Design (Look & Feel). “Design isn’t our core focus, so we wanted a professional opinion from a company that specialises in that area.” said Jaco Roux, Chief Technical Officer at uAfrica.com.

During extensive evaluations conducted on competing websites, the South African eCommerce Awards noted improvements not only to design and functionality but also streamlined shopping processes and emphasis on the eCommerce experience as a whole. Delivery was fast and efficient, with websites working closely with their courier companies to ensure customer satisfaction.

Another area where improvements were noted was customer service with websites responding almost immediately to inquiries. “Social Media plays a large role in customer service, and it was great to see websites embracing this tool to answer product related queries, stock availability or customer complaints.” said Andy Higgins, Managing Director of uAfrica.com.

The 2012 South African eCommerce Awards were brought to you by uAfrica.com and sponsored by AramexSA, PayFast, Druff Interactive and BizCommunity.com.

For the full list of Winners and Runners up go to www.ecommerceawards.co.za