A back-lit hoarding advertises the pick-up point to passing motorists

Takealot.com, the online retailer controlled by Naspers, has officially launched its flagship customer collections point on the New Road bridge over the N1 in Johannesburg.

The facility, which cradles the busiest highway in Africa — the N1 between South Africa’s commercial hub of Johannesburg and the seat of national government, Pretoria — was opened by Takealot CEO Kim Reid.

The launch comes seven months after TechCentral first reported that Takealot intended to use the bridge as a flagship collections centre for its Gauteng customers.

Customers are able to collect orders from 6am to 8pm on weekdays and 8am to 5pm on weekends from either a northerly or southerly direction.

Though Takealot has a large distribution centre on Johannesburg’s East Rand, customers are not able to collect orders from that facility.

Cape Town-based Takealot customers have long been able to collect orders directly from the company’s warehouse in Montague Gardens.

Photos of the Midrand facility follow (article continues below)…

The reception area at the pick-up point. The on-screen display lets customers know when they can come forward to collect their order

Shelves used to store customer orders that are awaiting collection. This area is upstairs from the customer collection point and straddles the highway

A sophisticated conveyor belt connects the operations upstairs with the collections centre below. Customers’ orders are delivered down the spiral belt to the collections desk

Reid said Takealot has opened 25 customer collection points around the country, with the Midrand facility serving as the flagship of these. It plans to open another 25 such facilities in the coming year.

In June 2018, Naspers revealed that it had acquired Tiger Global Management’s stake in Takealot. It now owns an effective 96% of the business (91% fully diluted). Naspers has invested more than R4.5-billion in the online retailer to date. — (c) 2019 NewsCentral Media