Telecom giant Vodacom announced the launch of Vouchercloud in South Africa recently — the popular UK app that allows you to locate a variety of geo-located deals and vouchers. This recent move demonstrates the growing interest in Africa’s developing ecommerce industry.
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The app uses your smartphone’s GPS to pinpoint your location while it searches for all relevant discounting retailers in the area, displays the deals and then guides the customer to the shop’s front door using the smartphone’s digital mapping application. It’s direct advertising at its best and proudest.
From shopping to eating out, Vodacom has partnered with a range of different popular brands locally including Edgars, Jet, Makro, Game, Hi-Fi Corp, Planet Fitness, Doppio Zero, Incredible Connection, Nu-metro Cinemas, McDonalds, Adega, Billabong and Pizza E Vino.
With over a million downloads across Europe, the app has proved to be very popular. Also, taking on much larger competitors such as Groupon South Africa which has won the award for the Best Group Buying Website in the last few years, this move reaffirms the belief that the local ecommerce demand is growing more competitive by the day.
According to research by World Wide Worx, online retail in South Africa is growing at 25-35% a year and is expected to reach R4.2-billion in 2013.
Hemmanth Singh, Managing Executive of m-Commerce at Vodacom says, “In the current economic environment, we’re all looking for ways to save money. Why not get your smartphone to work for you? It’ll locate all the nearby deals, sift through them and show you only those relevant to you, and then it’ll give you step by step guidance right to the door. With our extensive partner network, we’re confident you’ll be saving money from day one.”
Lyndon Munetsi, Managing Director of Vouchercloud South Africa says “Since Vouchercloud launched in the UK back in 2010, it has become the leading consumer app in Europe with over 6-million active users in the UK, Germany, Netherlands and Ireland.”
Munetsi concludes saying, “We’ve seen it work in other markets and we’re excited about the opportunities for South Africa. I’ve no doubt that Vouchercloud will deliver amazing value to both merchants and consumers. On-going brand awareness and promotion for merchants will drive real feet through the door and consumers can expect a wide selection of the best deals from our partners.”
