Official announcement! Amazon's new site will be launched

Yesterday, Amazon issued a statement saying that it will launch the South African site Amazon.co.za in 2024. Currently , local sellers in South Africa can register an account through the Seller Center.

Robert Koen, General Manager of Amazon Sub-Saharan Africa , said that he was looking forward to launching Amazon.co.za in South Africa . The new site will not only provide local sellers, brand owners and entrepreneurs (regardless of size) with opportunities to grow their business, but also provide customers across South Africa with a great value and convenient shopping experience.

Amazon also mentioned in the statement that 60% of sales on the platform come from third-party sellers, most of which are small and medium-sized enterprises. These third-party sellers also provide customers with a rich product selection, competitive prices and great convenience.

In fact, as early as January last year, there were news that Amazon was going to launch a site in South Africa, but the "launch" of the new site was full of difficulties, such as the challenging global technology environment and the laws and regulations of the Cape Town office.

According to people familiar with the matter, Amazon originally planned to launch the South African site in February this year , but the company reorganized its global business at the beginning of this year, and the plan was delayed as a result.

It was not until July this year that news finally came out that Amazon was recruiting 30 full-time positions related to the new site, including market managers, B-BBEE project managers, marketing supervisors, corporate resources and human resources compliance managers, and supplier managers.

Amazon also said in the statement that with the launch of the market, the company will provide a range of valuable tools, programs and services to empower sellers and promote the growth of their business, including hundreds of thousands of hours of free learning content to support sellers at every stage, including articles, videos, webinars and case studies.

However, even if it is successfully launched, Amazon will face many challenges in the new market, such as competition from the local online market in South Africa represented by Takealot.com, as well as supervision from antitrust agencies.

Just two months ago, the South African Competition Commission released the "Online Intermediary Platform Market Research Report", pointing out the suspected anti-monopoly measures of several large online platforms and proposing a series of rectification measures. The South African Competition Commission also specifically mentioned that these requirements and restrictions also apply to newly launched online market platforms.

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