Andy Higgins is a pioneer in e-commerce in South Africa – just don’t call him a “veteran”, he says, because the industry is still just getting started and he plans to be a part of its development for years to come.
In this interview on TechCentral’s new technology show, TC|Daily, Higgins joins Duncan McLeod in the studio to talk about his latest venture, called Bob Group, which is an amalgamation of two businesses he either founded or c-founded, Bidorbuy and uAfrica.
Higgins, who started Bidorbuy in 1999 at the height of the dot-com bubble, has many interesting stories to tell – about venture capital excesses, global expansion and the inevitable pain that followed the dot-com collapse – and he shares some of these tales in this show.
Now Higgins and his team are launching a new venture, which he hopes will make it easier for small and medium businesses to sell their products online in South Africa. It’s going to put Bob Group on a collision course with well-funded rivals like Takealot – and possibly Amazon from next year – but Higgins says he’s ready for it.
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Bob Group will offer a full suite of e-commerce services to South African businesses, including an online marketplace, inventory management, order fulfilment, a shipping tool, online payments and courier software as a service. It “offers everything e-commerce to all South African consumers and companies operating online, whether they are looking to sell, buy – or both”.
“The merger means that merchants will now be offered a complete set of e-commerce services, including payments, logistics and a marketplace,” Higgins said earlier this week about the launch of Bob Group.
In this episode of TC|Daily, he unpacks more details about Bob Group, and gives his views on what the (still not officially confirmed) launch of Amazon in South Africa early next year will mean for the local e-commerce landscape.
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