Comparison between Takealot and Amazon South Africa

Introduction

I have been using Takealot for online shopping for as long as I can remember, but Amazon recently launched in South Africa to give Takealot some competition. I have making been many online purchases on both since Black Friday 2024, and have decided to share a comparison between Takealot and Amazon South Africa based on my personal experience of shopping from the two of them.

Takealot

Pros

1. Items hardly ever arrive damaged.
2. Significantly larger product catalog.
3. User can immediately see the prices of items when browsing through the various deals pages without having to click through to the product page of each item.
4. The website and mobile app are both user-friendly and easy to navigate, and have modern UI and UX.
5. It is simple to reschedule a delivery.
6. Small items are always placed into boxes to prevent them from being damaged by the couriers, only large items that already have their own sturdy packaging are not placed into boxes.
7. The packaging tape on the boxes is very easy to remove.
8. The product review process uses AI to moderate the reviews and the review only requires manual approval if the AI doesn't approve the review automatically, so if the review guidelines are adhered to, product reviews are approved very quickly.
9. Delivery drivers give the user a phone call if they don't hear them hooting to ensure that the delivery is not missed.
10. Delivery handover is smooth and efficient.

Cons

1. Prices are often much higher than Amazon South Africa.
2. Some merchants sell fake brand name products, for example Levi's, Jeep, and a few of the "Parallel import" perfumes.
3. Sometimes a completely different and completely unrelated product is delivered instead of the one that was actually ordered.
4. Only a single collection point in my area which is inconvenient and out of my way.
5. Collections for returns cannot be rescheduled by the user, until the first collection attempt has failed.
6. Notifications for wish list items seem to be based on price changes, regardless of whether the price increases or decreases.
7. There is no option to view all wish list products at once wnen the user has more than one wish list. They have to browse though each wish list one by one.
8. When an incorrect product is delivered, and user requests a replacement for the product they originally ordered, the replacement order is shipped to the collection address for the incorrect product instead of the same delivery address as the original order. It would actually be better for the user to select a delivery address of their choice for the replacement order instead of Takealot making incorrect assumptions.
9. An order cannot be cancelled once the user has paid for it, they have to wait for it to be delivered and then schedule a return.
10. The user is able to review items before they are even delivered.
11. No progress bar to show the percentage of deals claimed.
12. Excessive use of boxes by either using oversized boxes or placing each order item into separate boxes instead of packaging everything together into a single box.
13. No indication of last purchased date if the user views the product page for a product that they have previously purchased.
14. When reviewing products, the user is unable to upload photos or videos as part of their review.
15. Multiple orders are often delivered by multiple different drivers instead of bundling orders for the same delivery address together with the same driver.

Amazon South Africa

Pros

1. Prices are often much lower than Takealot.
2. Collection points use Pudo Lockers (powered by The Courier Guy), and there are many around me, which makes collections much more convenient.
3. Order items can be cancelled before the order is packed.
4. The deals page has a progress bar that shows the percentage of deals claimed.
5. If the user clicks through to a product page for a product that they have previously purchased, the page product page will display the date that the product was previously purchased, which is useful for accidentally purchasing the same product more than once.
6. When reviewing products, the user is able to upload a photo or video as part of their review.
7. When browsing products in wish lists, there is an option for the user to browse all of their wish lists at once, instead of having to browse them one by one.

Cons

1. Some of the items that I ordered arrived with broken or damaged boxes, or even boxes that had been opened which is especially unacceptable when purchasing gifts.
2. Some items are packed into soft courier bags instead of boxes, which causes items to be damaged by the couriers.
3. Liquids aren't packaged properly and get packaged with other items on the same order and then leak onto those items.
4. There are products that have incorrect or deceptive images on the product pages, which is very misleading.
5. Prices are not visible when browsing through the deals pages. The user has to click though to the product page for each item to view the price of that specific item.
6. Some deals have a product limit per customer, for example only a quantity of 2 of the specific item may be purchased at the deal price.
7. Some products are categorised incorrectly into the incorrect product category.
8. The navigation on both the website and mobile app are very buggy and they both jump and make the user lose track of where they were while trying to scroll through the deals pages.
9. The UI of the page to cancel order items is hideous, and only allows the user to cancel the entire quantity instead of allowing the user to specify the quantity that they want to cancel.
10. The general UI and UX are very dated and not user-friendly at all.
11. The user has to fight with the packaging tape to remove it from the boxes.
12. The product review process seems to be manual, so it takes a long time for product reviews to be approved.
13. Delivery drivers often request the user to sign for the delivery even though a PIN is already required in order to accept delivery.
14. Delivery drivers drive off if the user does not hear them hooting, and also do not give the user sufficient time to meet them before driving off.
15. Delivery handover is slow and inefficient and requires a lot of patience most of the time.

Conclusion

• Takealot is generally a far superior experience.
• Amazon South Africa has far more competitive pricing, for their daily and Black Friday deals if you get there early enough before the deal gets sold out.