Published - Wed, 26-Jun-2024

Top Five Alternatives to Takealot in South Africa

Top Five Alternatives to Takealot in South Africa

Takealot isn't the only online shopping platform in South Africa, but it is indeed the biggest one. However, small businesses in South Africa may feel anxious to wet their feet with Takealot as there are a lot of fees involved. However, Takealot has a few great alternatives. In this article, let's explore five alternatives to Takealot to start selling online in South Africa.

Top Five Alternatives to Takealot in South Africa

Facebook Marketplace

Facebook Marketplace is a great platform for peer-to-peer sellers. Small businesses dealing with handmade products such as food items, pickles, handicrafts, and accessories can benefit from the Facebook marketplace.

According to a survey on Statista, South Africa expects about 36 million Facebook users by 2026. Another survey from Napoleon Cat in April 2024 concludes that there were 31,774,300 Facebook users in April 2024. With these statistics, Facebook Marketplace opens a new potential to reach new customers online.

Alternatively, you can launch a Facebook Page of your business and start selling your products via the page itself. Once you create a Facebook business page, you can add a shop section for displaying products. Then choose the checkout method. To add products, choose a product catalogue, then shipping and returns. Submit your shop and finish the setup.

Let's talk about this extensively in the next article. Note that the Facebook Marketplace has no features like payment collection or delivery options. So you have to rely on courier services, bank transfers, and the trust between you and your customers.

Gumtree

Gumtree, the most popular Classified Ads website in South Africa, experiences about 3.8 million unique monthly visits. At the time of writing this article, there are 659,495 live ads right now. Small businesses mentioned in the Facebook Marketplace section can also benefit from Gumtree.

On Gumtree, you can push your classified ads for free. If you manage a horde of ads on Gumtree, they also have premium packages to streamline your advertising experience on the platform.

With premium packages, you can promote your stuff over other ads, bump your ad to the top section of the page, and get more views and sales. This is a great platform for online sellers to wet their feet in the competition.

Also, there is no seller protection by Gumtree. However, they expect you to follow certain online safety rules when dealing on their platform.

Bob Shop

Bob Shop, formerly bidorbuy, is an online marketplace in South Africa where you can auction your products. There's also an alternative option to sell your products directly at a fixed price. Product listing on the platform is for free. However, there is a success fee on the products you sell. The success fee ranges between 2.5% to 10% depending on your product category.

On the other hand, you can also open a Bob Shop exclusive storefront to strengthen your brand image on the platform. However, this will attract a monthly cost of R500 and beyond, depending on your options.

Thanks to its auction model, certain items on Bob Shop can certainly fetch higher profits. There are numerous ways to pay on Bob Shop, which is a plus for small businesses.

Makro

Makro is another online e-commerce platform similar to Takealot in South Africa. According to SimilarWeb, the website had 4.7m visits in May 2024. There are certain benefits to using Makro over Takealot, the prime one being not having to deal with a plethora of monthly fees.

While Makro does not have a warehouse storage system, they also take care of order fulfilment for you. Overall, Makro is a great alternative to Takealot for lower-budget options.

Loot

Loot is yet another popular online e-commerce platform in South Africa. Similar to Takealot. Loot features two distinct charges on your selling price and fulfilment fee, based on the product's size and weight. Loot also offers warehouse storage which incurs an additional fee for any overstocked items. However, storage is free for fast-moving items.

All the payments done to you via Loot will be added to your Loot Seller Portal. This balance gets transferred to your bank twice a month. In nature, Loot is similar to Takealot, however the fees lean on the lower side. It is a smaller marketplace compared to Takealot but could be a great start for small businesses with limited options.

Final Words

These are the top five alternatives to Takealot in South Africa. If you have budget issues, Takealot can be taxing to keep up with. These alternatives can help you manage your budget as you grow your brand.

On the other hand, if you are looking to become a Takealot Seller in South Africa, Skill Space has an in-depth course to offer. For a limited time, the course is free and yours to keep! For any questions, feel free to contact us.

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