MyRunway is expecting a 400% increase in its eCommerce sales on Black Friday this year. The day of pre-Christmas discounted shopping falls on 25 November.
According to data from the fashion eCommerce retailer, 80% of Black Friday shoppers are expected to make their purchases online – a trend that has seen a steady increase since 2020. MyRunway data also shows that 88% of shoppers review products and sales online before making any purchase.
Between 9:00 and 10:00 on Black Friday, MyRunway sees 25% of the purchases on its largest sale day of the year made, with the highest value of transactions from female shoppers in KwaZulu-Natal – who spend twice as much as men.
“One would expect the largest spend per customer to come from Gauteng, but female shoppers in KwaZulu-Natal spend an average of 50% more per purchase, followed by shoppers in the Eastern Cape.” says Rob Noble, Managing Director of MyRunway, “The favoured items are t-shirts, watches and sneakers and 40% of these transactions are for men and children”.
MyRunway is the only privately held fashion e-tailer in South Africa with significant scale and one of the very few profitable online retailers. It has partnered with most of the big brands and retailers in SA. It is often referred to as the online version of Access Park or Woodmead Value Mart.
Noble says that the two major retail trends of the past few years, online shopping and value, will continue to dominate for the foreseeable future.
Online retail is a low single-digit percentage of total retail in South Africa, the opportunity still has a lot of room to expand to catch up to global market share norms. eCommerce penetration in the UK is at 30%, the US at 20% and China over 50%.
South Africa’s online retailers need to prepare for the next boost in the industry – a potential watershed for the industry’s players.
“In South Africa, online sales channels were not taken seriously by most of the established retailers pre-2020. These retailers have now spent the last 2 years trying to fast-track their digital transformation, with varying degrees of success despite huge internal investments,” says Noble.
The next growth spurt is expected to happen when Amazon arrives in South Africa next year.
“There will be big winners and big losers. Amazon will grow the online shopping channel but will also snatch market share from online shopping sites that are not offering a great customer experience.” says Noble.
Noble says that their business has seen noticeable interest in brands looking to partner and invest in MyRunway’s site that has consistently grown since its launch ten years ago and now has 2.5 million value-focused consumers.
LA Group recently acquired a minority stake in MyRunway. The investment by the company that represents premium brands like Polo, Converse, Mango, Nike Kids and Dickies, follows a R100 million financial injection by private equity firm Spear Capital in 2019.
