Accelerating digital enablement in the retail market
The importance of accelerating digital enablement in the retail market By Hymie Marnewick, Managing Director of XLink and Celine Thungaveloo Head of Sales at XLink A question that retailers are grappling with is where to focus their energy to drive sales: in brick-and-mortar stores or by investing in their online presence. “The simple answer is that the division between traditional retail and e-commerce needs to be reassessed,” explains Hymie Marnewick, Managing Director of XLink. Changing consumer demands With the catchphrase of the moment being “digital transformation”, it may be surprising to read that traditional retail still brought in a trillion-rand sum last year. However, the sector did see a decline of a little over 4% from 2019. Conversely, South Africa’s online retail sector grew by an astonishing 66% in 2020, more than doubling its share of total retail spend since 2018. This unprecedented growth can largely be attributed to...