Livebids.co.za, a new internet startup that will be launching on the 19th March by local company name Livebids Auctions PTY (Ltd) aims to shake up the SA online retail market and change the way consumers buy and sell online.

Livebids co-founders Rory Vollmer and Paul von Hoesslin from Cape Town, first started creating Livebids.co.za with the idea to develop an online market place that would help buyers and sellers fully connect in trade while being rewarded.

Rory who had been in the online auctioneering game of selling for a few years already, approached Paul, an already close friend for over seven years back in 2009, and the idea grew from there.

This unique online social market place offers three selling and buying formats that include Auctions, Pay Per Bid and Group Buying that that together will differentiate Livebids’s service from other pay-per-bid sites already in SA. While the first model is based on the traditional format where items are sold to the highest bidder and group buying is similar to that currently utilised by Groupon, Pay Per Bid rounds up the service as the only site to offer all three models on one platform.

In addition, Livebids rewards all buyers and sellers that utilise the service via the Pay Per Bid model whereby Livebids pays sellers to sell on the site and buyers earn points that can be exchanged for bids. Pay Per Bid aims to empower online sellers by giving them an opportunity to make massive profits.

(more…)

Here is one of the latest featured projects from fundraising platform, Kickstarter who has so far raised over $140, 000 for the HuMn wallet. The innovative wallet was developed by two busy young entrepreneurs who were left unsatisfied after trying every type of wallet, money clip and card holder available on the market. The contents of all of them would constantly fall out and none of them held everything you needed it to.

With smartphones capable of storing pictures, contacts, and holding information, it seems the fate of most wallets is to become a graveyard for old receipts.

After some research it was decided that the market is missing a wallet that is lightweight, keeps a low profile, is minimally designed, will never wear out, can handle any climate, allows easy access to cash, credit and business cards, wouldn’t turn into just another portable receipt holder, wouldn’t be limited to a fixed number of cards and protects against RFID skimming. And so after 11 months of development, the HuMn wallet was created.

(more…)

Established businessman, Nick Essame, and young entrepreneur, Martin Ras, launched an exciting new initiative on 1 February 2012, Crowd-funding.co.za.

The idea revolves around the notion of a collective co-operation of people who network and pool their resources together to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations. However, Crowd-funding.co.za is different in comparison to the conventional manner of crowd funding, primarily because the start up is identified prior to your pledge and the money is only going to one start up, once off.

Martin Ras, co-founder and operations manager explains that “While there are several venture capitalists currently in South Africa, not a lot of them are focused on providing seed capital. Most of them only invest in companies with a track record, so raising money for a startup is quite a daunting and a time consuming exercise in SA. In addition many of the VC companies have very focused investment criteria’s and Mobile Payments is not a common one.” And so, with this in mind, Martin and Nick decided to set up a front-end to raise capital for their start up.

The startup in question is Ching, a third party payment facilitator that enables merchants to accept Pin based credit and debit card payments via a web or a mobi site. The “Ching solution” makes the opportunity of accepting debit or credit card payments available to any merchant, whether big or small; new or established, and will benefit any business. The security mechanisms that surround the Ching environment also protect the merchant from repudiation based disputes and chargebacks.

(more…)

According to a survey conducted on News24 by PayU, 77% of respondents stated that they believed online shopping was the way of the future. A further survey, conducted by online shopping site Kalahari.com, revealed that 31% of shoppers said they chose to shop online for Valentine’s Day and NetFlorist, an online flower and floral shop, experiences an approximate 59% profit increase each February.

Wayne Gosling, joint CEO of online group buying company Groupon SA, says there is a need for online companies to recognise the increase in sales and public interest in romantic deals around Valentine’s Day. “As shown by previous holiday sales, we’ve realised our service is one that people like to utilise especially over romantic holidays to experience things in their city that they wouldn’t normally know about; let alone get to try.”

Groupon SA offered a variety of options to romantically-minded customers, including a night away or a helicopter ride for two, jewellery and spa Groupons. This kind of variety is essential to ensure successful online retailing, Gosling believes. “Online shopping offers creativity at your fingertips,” he says. “Whereas previously one would have to spend hours searching for the right gift for the right situation – now it’s a matter of simply following a few links; it removes all hassle.”

Jewellery retailers have reported selling an increased number of diamond engagement rings: Sterns and American Swiss, both controlled by the Foschini Group, said Valentine week sales swelled by as much as 50% above normal.

Yumna Ebrahim, from economic analysis firm Econometrix, believes that the country’s prosperity over Valentine’s week can be attributed to South Africa’s economic resilience in comparison to retailers in the UK and US following the global recession.

According to Ebrahim, impulse shopping over the festive season, followed by favourable interest rates, could have a sustained positive effect on prosperity and consumer spending in South Africa.

With a number of price comparison sites already available for consumers in South Africa like ShopMania, Shopbot and PriceCheck that was acquired by MIH, the investment arm of Naspers in 2010, websites like these are certainly not a new concept but one that has potential for improvement. Jump Shopping, an online shopping search engine itself, aimed to do just that with the launch of its latest initiative, FindPrice.

FindPrice was launched to align the requirements of consumers with that of E-Commerce shops by listing products of South African online shops in one convenient location. As E-Commerce in South Africa continues to grow with so much potential, Jump Shopping noticed a shift in online consumer trends over the last few years and observed a few key aspects of the online shopping industry, focusing on how shoppers interact online and what they want from a price comparison website. A key finding was that with with so many online shops offering great deals it was difficult to keep track of them all and so Jump Shopping wanted to provide the solution. Enter FindPrice.

As a result of this shift, managing director of Jump Shopping Jaco Roux explains, “We were faced with the option to adapt or be left behind. The choice was easy. We didn’t want a face-lift. We wanted a fresh start and the ability to do it right from the start. Data quality and user experience is the key focus of FindPrice. Give the consumers what they want in the most convenient manner and it will lead to more sales and a stronger E-Commerce economy.”

(more…)

Ever since the first five group buying websites in South Africa were founded, a few bright minds had the idea of putting all the deals on one website, and in doing so they gave birth to a second wave of daily deal websites. Actually, the first time I heard of it was in a meeting with Andy Hadfield and Henk Kleynhans, where Henk suddenly came up with it. Although by that time it was already present overseas.

The advantages of starting this type of site gives one the same tingle as social buying sites do – they are so easy to start up and seemingly only result in everyone making massive profits. But, as collective buying websites have proven by failing, this is not necessarily the case, and the returns are harder to realize and smaller than you would think. Dealify closed, Zappon closed, Dealio closed and so have many of the smaller sites that were never really on the map.

And so is the case with aggregators now. The returns are small and one actually requires sending a great deal of affiliate traffic through to get the site earning you some money. Add to this the fact that many group buying websites do not even have affiliate programs (although there are now third party programs like AdMarula) and also that some of them do not pay you, and you have a recipe for failure. Groupon, for example, has been noted by aggregators as being exceedingly difficult to partner with.

(more…)

Group buying has exploded in South Africa and shows no sign of slowing. Although some of the smaller ‘fly by night’ players have come and gone, there are plenty local group buying sites that are carving out a market for themselves. We are also seeing lots of international players entering our small local market with Google Deals, Facebook Deals, etc.

Jess is an entrepreneur who has profited from the global group buying craze. He started Ubuntu Deal late last year and within 6 months was acquired (100% acquisition) by local internet giant, Bid or Buy. International player Groupon also entered the market several months back with an acquisition of local player Twangoo. You can watch the Twangoo interview here.

I chat to Jess about his acquisition, subscriber and revenue growth post acquisition, which cities they have expanded to in South Africa and what his take is on the big international players entering the market (see below). I also asked if there is a market for group buying in Africa, his take on group buying on mobile, the Groupon IPO and the issue around group buying’s low barrier to entry. (more…)

Just as I posted on LivingSocial.com coming into South Africa, we now have Facebook Deals making its entrance. If anyone thought the social buying landscape was going to be shaken up by Groupon, it seems it is only now becoming of age.

In a slightly new style of doing deals, Facebook Deals has appointed Habari Media as their official sales partner, which is said to be launching in August 2011. And that, by my watch, is in 5 days time. However, this is not going to be the “rush and buy the deal without reading the fine print and be unhappy later” kind of deal – customers are going to use a Foursquare-type check-in to earn rewards and deals alike.

There are different kinds of deals to earn:

• Individual Deals are those offering something for someone checking in – this could be a discount or an actual product/service. Imagine a free coffee for checking into a new coffee shop.
• Loyalty Deals rewards customers after a certain number of check-ins (finally something for all the Foursquare mayors in South Africa?).
• Friend Deals offer discounts to a group of up to eight friends – so this equates to the sort-of Swarm Badge effect that Foursquare has.
• Charity Deals mean that a business gives money to a cause when you check in.

The only group buying deal really is the Friend Deal, all the others would be to build awareness and loyalty. But Facebook Deals does not only generate awareness, and place feet with a merchant – they also create a loyal following. And in the end, one can imagine the kind of “sharing” and “liking” that will really place small and large businesses on the map, online and in person.

According to Habari Media, there are at this point in time “over 300 000 local Facebook users who daily check in to Facebook Places, with no incentive to do so.” The biggest eyebrow-raiser, as always: Where does Facebook Deals get a cut? So far, the only way for them to earn bucks here is on the advertising that businesses will spend on to attract people to their Places. This does not necessarily seem viable.

There are many also debates:

• How accurate is this sort of check-in? Foursquare in Africa is not accurate and I doubt Facebook Deals will be.
• How do the merchants check it? If I check into a coffee shop four times from my office and arrive on the fifth time for my loyalty cup, how would they know?
• How does one know where to check in? Will the iOS, Android and RIM Facebook apps start telling us what is around us? Or is Foursquare still going to trounce Facebook Deals in South Africa in this regard?
• What if someone wants to check in and not let others know – will this be available?
• Can merchants add their own deals? What will they add? Can offices add deals, such as on Foursquare?

Many points remain to be answered, but one thing seems sure – Facebook Deals will be in South Africa in August 2011. The questions are: Will you be using it, and will it be worth it for businesses and customers?