How smartphones are remaking retail

ONLINE commerce is no longer new to the South African market, with research from World Wide Worx indicating that ecommerce surpassed R130 billion in 2025 and captured close to 10% of total retail sales.

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DISCOVER how smartphones are driving the evolution of retail in South Africa, with e-commerce surpassing R130 billion in 2025. Explore the innovations in AI, social commerce, and augmented reality that are transforming the shopping experience.

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Smartphone users are driving a significant portion of that growth, with around 55% of users reporting that they use their phones to shop online.

However, we are still in the early phases of mobile commerce, with a range of innovations reshaping how South African consumers discover, evaluate and buy products and services.

Social commerce, artificial intelligence (AI) and augmented reality are changing how people shop by offering them immersive new experiences and deeper personalisation.

Brands and retailers on the cutting edge are already weaving AI into their e-commerce apps and websites to improve personalisation and convenience for their customers. Pick n Pay’s revamped asap! app, relaunched in 2025, uses AI search that learns a customer's shopping behaviour to offer smarter product suggestions and streamline the browsing experience.

In the next wave of Al-enabled mobile commerce, we will see AI assistants in retail apps or messaging platforms that can answer your questions about products, suggest alternatives when items are out of stock, and guide you through complex purchases in a natural text-based or voice conversation.

Generative AI assistants will be able to do more than personalise suggestions based on your shopping history.