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Last week, it was announced that all goods may be sold through e-commerce platforms.

That’s aside from alcohol and tobacco products, although I would imagine that online orders for booze have seen a spike, too.

The decision by the Department of Trade, Industry, and Competition was met with great relief around the country, and many South Africans quickly busied themselves filling their online carts and heading to the checkout.

So, what exactly were we searching for, after close to two months of being limited to purchasing essential items online?

MyBroadband spoke with PriceCheck founder and CEO Kevin Tucker about their stats for Thursday through to Saturday, which reveal the most popular online shopping searches.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, searches for personal protective equipment came out tops, with one notable exception:

“It seems South Africans are indeed dabbling with home brewing as hydrometers can be used for measuring alcohol content,” said Tucker.

Many people also searched for winter-related products like “gas heaters” and exercise equipment like “treadmills” and “spinning bikes”.

There is also a clear trend towards finding work-from-home products, including laptops, webcams and LTE modems.

Those hydrometer searches show that home brewing has certainly taken off in a big way.

The top search result was for infrared thermometers, which will be essential for any businesses opening up when you consider the legal requirements now facing employers, and thermometers accounted for three of the top 10 searches altogether.

Treadmill and home exercise machine searches usually spike ahead of the winter months, but uncertainty around exercising outside would have played a role, too.

The list of the 50 most searched items did include a number of recreational purchase items, and I’m sure I’m not alone in having dabbled in some retail therapy over the weekend.

If your budget is a little stretched at the moment, but you still want to feel the rush of somebody ringing your doorbell with goodies, there’s always the option to ‘buy now, pay later’, using PayJustNow.

Shop at any of their listed merchants (including Veldskoen, Freedom of Movement, and many other local favourites), select PayJustNow as your preferred payment option when you check out, and you can pay your purchase in three easy, interest-free instalments.

Zero hidden fees, and zero interest, with each payment spread out a month apart.

I’m not going to judge you for spoiling yourself with something nice, because I think we’ve all earned a treat.

Other items of interest in the top 50 searches included dishwashers, and gaming consoles like the Sony PlayStation and the Microsoft Xbox One.

I’m surprised that board games didn’t feature, because I reckon I’ve reached my annual Scrabble game count in the past two weeks alone.

Whatever you’re buying, I hope it brings you joy – in which case I would steer clear of Monopoly.

No family has ever finished that board game peacefully.

[source:mybroadband]