2023 CX Report Insights: Shoppers Are Settling In Online, Can Brands Keep Up?

While Euromonitor anticipates that retail commerce sales will hit R60-billion in 2023 (a 15% climb from 2022), online shopping is becoming a norm among consumers. In 2021, we had 82% of respondents saying they’ve bought from a virtual store; that number rose to 87% in 2022 and is sitting at 88% this year. Our data also found that frequent online shoppers are older and have a household income of more than R10 000.

Are Brands Ready To Stay Online?

In 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic and work-from-home, brands and consumers increased their online presence. This elevated the need for businesses to be digital, but since things have “normalised”, how are brands surviving and reaching their audiences?

First, it is important to recognise that digital presence also drives South African consumers to the store and not just to buy online. Our data suggests that online research influences as much as R516-billion in retail sales, both online and in physical stores, while digital product discovery could contribute R478-billion in sales.

Rogerwilco CEO, Charlie Stewart points to the reality that digital has become so entwined with our daily lives that all customer journeys go online at some point.

“Omnichannel is omnipresent, so digital’s impact needs to be measured long before the checkout.” - Charlie Stewart, Rogerwilco.

As research becomes one of the key benefits of using the internet, offering consumers the opportunity to hunt for bargains, many of our respondents said they regularly hunt for deals on retail sites and social media pages to save a few bucks.

Get this and more insights and findings in The 2023 CX Report by Rogerwilco.

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