Amazon’s South African e-commerce marketplace has experienced substantial growth since its launch two years ago, carving out a comfortable spot in a market dominated by Takealot.

Amazon has not shared specific revenues, profit, or order volume figures in South Africa, but World Wide Worx‘s 2025 Online Retail Report found its local marketplace launch drew many more locals to the store.

A survey conducted by Ask Africa for the report found that 12.3% of South Africans had shopped on Amazon.com in 2024, the year in which it launched locally, compared to 6.4% in 2023.

Based on Amazon.co.za order delivery data extracted by a MyBroadband Forum member, orders fulfilled by its biggest courier partner grew substantially month-on-month until at least October 2025.

The forum estimated that Amazon.co.za was processing nearly half a million orders per month at that point.

In a recent interview on What’s Next with Aki Anastasiou, Amazon Sub-Saharan Africa managing director Robert Koen said the marketplace also had a “knockout” fourth quarter in 2025.

Koen said that momentum was carried over to the first quarter of 2026. However, he acknowledged that Amazon was still early in its journey in South Africa.

“We’re listening carefully to our customers, and we’re going to continue to fine-tune the offering and make sure we’re really giving South Africans what they want and what they deserve,” Koen said.

One area of focus has been expanding Amazon.co.za’s product range, which Koen said was growing by thousands of new products every week.

Another was ensuring that packages were delivered within the promised timeframe, even within a particular window of a few hours.

Koen said that Amazon was getting great feedback from South African customers about its pricing and service delivery.

One noteworthy observation has been its growth outside the country’s main urban hubs. “Whether it’s Port Nolloth, Beitbridge, or the middle of rural KwaZulu-Natal, we’ve got a big customer base,” he said.

Amazon has also boosted local businesses selling on its marketplace, including small firms like Romtech, whose presence on the store supercharged its performance.

With Fulfilment by Amazon, Romtech’s units sold surged 6,878% and sales 4,872% over a 12-month period.

Romtech founder Jacques Keth said Amazon demonstrated “genuine care” about its marketplace sellers and was eager to build a strong, mutually beneficial, and lasting relationship with them.

Tapping into local courier power

Koen lending a hand on a delivery run with The Courier Guy.
Koen told Anastasiou his vision for Amazon.co.za is to be South Africa’s most loved and trusted online store.

“We’ve arrived when a gogo in rural KwaZulu-Natal will order something and say, ‘Hey, we really trust Amazon because we know they get us, we love the experience, we know we can trust Amazon,” he said.

Many industry experts anticipated Amazon would struggle to compete with the likes of Takealot and other mature e-commerce players, especially when it came to logistics.

While the retailer had a fairly underwhelming debut with a limited product range and pricing similar to Takealot, its delivery turnarounds were generally excellent from the get-go.

Takealot had years to grow its logistics capability in South Africa. Its ability to deliver in-stock products nearly anywhere in South Africa in one to three days is a major motivator for customers to check out.

For Amazon to establish a similar in-house capability within a short period would have required a substantial amount of capital.

Instead, it partnered with two well-established courier companies in South Africa — The Courier Guy and DPD Laser — to fulfill its last-mile deliveries.

MyBroadband staff have placed numerous orders on the marketplace over the last two years and repeatedly found that its delivery turnarounds were exceptional.

One recent example was a customer in Pretoria who ordered two items on a Saturday evening and received both within about a day and a half using standard shipping.

While one item was in stock at Amazon’s warehouse in Johannesburg, the other was only available in Cape Town.

Instead of putting both items in the same order, Amazon split them over two deliveries — one on Sunday morning and the other on Monday morning.

Takealot typically requires users to spend extra for weekend deliveries, except if they subscribe to its TakealotMore service.

Amazon also has a much larger network of package collection points, with more than 4,000 Pargo points and The Courier Guy lockers across the country, compared to Takealot’s 140-odd locations.

Source: https://mybroadband.co.za/news/business/650410-amazon-taking-the-fight-to-takealot-in-south-africa.html