Globally, the retail specialist is enjoying good momentum. Artisanal is back in style, and people’s love of specialist items extends beyond craft beer, niche neighbourhood markets and skilled bakers.
This trend is being mirrored online, as large e-tailers realise that they are not geared for building category depth and prefer to acquire other companies to do this for them.
So says Gary Novitzkas, CEO of specialist health, wellness and fitness e-tailer Juniva. Previously CEO of Kalahari, his new e-commerce venture is enjoying a 30% month-on-month growth. He attributes this to appealing to a market that has an increased appetite for information coupled with a quest to live well.
A possible side-effect of anti-consumerism, climate change, agricultural provenance, or the rise of ordinary man, Novitzkas says that more and more, society is looking for alternative status symbols and meaning.
“Forget flashing your shiny new car around the neighbourhood; rather post a selfie on Facebook after completing your first parkrun.”
To this end, Juniva has no intentions of being everything to everyone, but plans to remain a niche e-tailer.
Novitzkas believes the e-commerce sector in South Africa is thriving, having seen massive growth in the last 24 months across all components of the value chain. “In my view, these are the new principles of e-commerce in South Africa: specialised, valuable, and convenient.”
