Black Friday’s missing shoppers: SA’s online retail boom is leaving millions behind
Specno urges retailers to examine who their digital shopping experiences exclude as online spending heads towards R159 billion.
South Africa’s online retail market is forecast to reach R159 billion in 2026, yet most adults still do not shop online. The Online Retail in South Africa 2026 report, produced by World Wide Worx in partnership with Mastercard, Peach Payments and Ask Afrika, forecasts annual growth of approximately 22.5%, with online sales expected to account for 10% of national retail turnover across the full year.
However, consumer research underpinning the report, based on 23,910 interviews conducted during 2025, found that 79.1% of South African adults use the internet, while only 34.2% shop online. As retailers prepare for Black Friday, digital innovation agency and product consultancy Specno says businesses risk competing for the same customers while overlooking the barriers preventing millions more from making their first purchase.
For Joshua Harvey, CEO of Specno, that gap should change the questions retailers ask ahead of the November shopping season: “A growing online market can disguise how many people are still outside it,” says Harvey. “Retailers need to ask whether they are making it easier for someone to buy online for the first time, or simply making more offers to people who already know how.”
The report identifies delivery charges, minimum-order requirements, unreliable delivery outside major urban areas, payment concerns, data costs and limited local-language support among the obstacles to wider participation.
“A first-time shopper should not have to reach the final screen to discover whether you deliver to their area or what delivery costs,” says Harvey. “And if a payment is interrupted, they need a clear answer: did the order go through, was money taken and what should they do next? That moment can determine whether they trust you enough to continue or try again.”
Practical improvements include checking delivery availability early, displaying charges before checkout, explaining payment steps in plain language and making assistance easy to find. Where feasible, guest checkout can also remove the need to create an account before completing a purchase, which can often dissuade interest of new shoppers as well.
“If retailers want to make their online sales accessible to millions of new customers nationwide, they should test their Black Friday journeys on entry-level smartphones, using mobile data and interrupted connections, before they begin to consider any increases on campaign spending to existing online shoppers. That means examining whether large images delay loading, promotional pop-ups obscure essential information, forms are difficult to complete and a dropped connection forces someone to start again” adds Harvey.
“If your team has only tested the promotion on a recent phone over office Wi-Fi, there is more testing to do,” he says. “Ask someone unfamiliar with your store to complete a purchase on a basic device. Watch where they hesitate, what they misunderstand and whether they can begin again easily when something fails.”
The product consultancy also recommends preserving basket contents when connectivity drops and providing a reliable way to check an order’s status before attempting payment again. Retailers should also measure where customers abandon the journey across different devices and connection conditions, then investigate the reasons with users.
The research in question also challenges the assumption that an app should be every retailer’s priority: browsers were more widely used for purchases than apps in 42 of the 48 categories measured: “Investment should follow the frequency and nature of the customer’s need. An app may offer meaningful convenience to someone who shops regularly, while an occasional buyer may simply need a fast mobile website.”
Harvey believes Black Friday performance should also be assessed after the promotional traffic subsides. Accurate delivery promises, useful tracking, accessible support and understandable returns processes all shape whether a new buyer comes back. Retailers should track how many first-time customers complete their orders successfully, what support they require and whether they purchase again in the following months. Those measures can reveal whether acquisition spending is creating lasting customer relationships.
“Black Friday can buy you attention and a first sale. The experience that follows determines whether you have earned a customer,” says Harvey. “If the parcel is late, tracking is unhelpful and nobody answers a query, the discount becomes the least memorable part of the purchase.”
For South African retailers, expanding online participation begins with understanding the people current shopping journeys fail to serve: “Your next customer may already be online, already know your brand and already want what you sell. The opportunity is to remove what stops them buying and give them a reason to return when the discount is gone.”
