Sure, there are plenty of things wrong with Takealot – they have annoying ads, they allegedly inflate prices only to drop them later, and their delivery fee is, at times, questionable – but when it comes to the e-commerce industry in South Africa, numbers show they are flying pretty high.

Naspers, the global internet and entertainment group and one of the largest technology investors in the world, recently released its financial results for the financial year ending March 31, and it includes information relating to the e-commerce site.

Takealot was launched back in June 2011 “after the successful acquisition of Take2 by Kim Reid and the US hedge fund Tiger Global,” reports MyBroadband.

Then:

In 2014, Takealot received a $100-million investment from Tiger Global, after which Takealot purchased Mr. Delivery – giving it ownership of its logistics network.

In May 2015, Naspers-owned Kalahari.com merged with Takealot to create the premier online shopping destination in Africa.

In April 2017, Naspers signed an agreement to acquire a controlling stake in Takealot for approximately R960 million ($73m).

Now, following the investment, Naspers will be “the majority shareholder (53.6%) in Takealot”.

So let’s get to the stats.

When Takealot merged with Kalahari, it became the biggest e-commerce platform in the country – which was the exact vision of those who founded it.

Now, it’s business is “much larger than its local competitor Bidorbuy, and is bigger than Amazon and eBay in South Africa”.

Here is a comparative graph:

[We’re not too sure what the additional grey line at the bottom refers to, though.]

The chart below is from SimilarWeb and shows a recent traffic comparison between Takealot and Bidorbuy:

Those numbers on the left-hand side are millions, with Bidorbuy fluctuating between 2,5 and 5 million visits between December last year and March of this. Takealot is sitting at the 10 million mark.

A word of advice for those wanting more options than our e-commerce traders here at home – you need to check out Postbox Courier, and a range of international e-commerce site options will open for you.

[source:mybroadband]