Corporate SA joins global e-commerce race
Corporate SA, most recently Vodacom and Nedbank, is joining the global e-commerce race. These companies are not alone
As technology firms compete to create an all-in-one platform for commerce in SA, those most likely to benefit are the country’s neglected small businesses.The potential value of a thriving small-enterprise sector for SA’s sinking economy has often been stated. But the experience of such firms has generally been wound up in red tape. They are faced with poor administration by the government, banks and others, and have to deal with many regulatory requirements.Vodacom, SA’s largest mobile operator, recently launched a new partnership with Chinese mobile payments giant Alipay to create a super app that will aggregate merchants and service providers so that users can do all their business online and "never have to leave the app".Perhaps the most famous example of a super app is Tencent’s WeChat. It lets its users order food, hail rides, play games and make payments for a growing list of services. By the end of the first quarter of 2020 WeChat had more than 1.2-billion users, most of th...
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