For the most part, South African retail e-commerce lags much behind Europe and the USA. Online shopping is certainly not a mainstream activity among South Africans, most of whom, let’s not forget, do not have access to internet and/or credit cards. For the more affluent South Africans, the reluctance to part with their credit card details online is combined with relatively high internet access costs (we should add with often infuriatingly low download speeds). On the other side of the equation, numerous high-profile and perfectly respectable South African retailers, never mind smaller ones, seem to be happily oblivious to the advantages of online commerce. This is of course an unfortunate chicken and egg situation, but there are notable exceptions. Here is Cape Town Expat's pick of the best South African online stores:

Groceries Online

• Woolworths
• Pick’n’Pay

Wine Online

• Cyber Cellar

Organic Products Online

• Faithful to Nature

Fragrance and Cosmetics Online

• Ascot Direct

Babies and kids Online

• Clever Little Monkey

Home and Furniture Online

• Woolworths Home
• Edgars
• ODE Floating Shelves 

Clothes and accessories Online

• Adam and Eve

Books, CDs, DVDs, Gaming Online

• Kalahari
• Take2
• Exclusive Books

Online superstores

• E-Dreams
• Wantitall

Gifts Online

• The Gift Company

Computers and Electronics Online

• Digital Planet
• Incredible Connection 

If you would like to recommend a great South African online store, drop us a mail to This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it .

Last update: October 07, 2008