Conversational commerce in South Africa: in-chat payments on the rise

Conversational commerce is about meeting customers where they are – and where they prefer to make a purchase. Often taking place on social media platforms or chat apps, conversational commerce refers to the ability for customers to engage with brands by speaking with a human or chatbot – ultimately exploring options and making a purchase through a familiar chat channel. 

By enabling consumers to browse, ask questions, and even complete purchases through familiar platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and voice assistants, conversational commerce makes online retail more accessible.

This trend continues to grow in South Africa, which boasts high mobile penetration, a growing ecommerce sector and widespread use of messaging apps. As more South African businesses embrace this model and the technology improves – more frequently with the assistance of AI – customers can enjoy a more seamless and personalized shopping experience, and businesses can make it easier than ever for them to complete a purchase.

What is conversational commerce? 

Conversational commerce refers to the ability for customers to shop and chat with a member of a brand team via popular messaging applications or their social media platform of choice. Through conversational commerce, businesses are able to engage with customers via chatbots, messaging apps, voice assistants or human support agents, to facilitate personalised shopping experiences that take customers through the entire purchasing journey without requiring them to navigate to another platform or refer back to a website. The key to this complete journey is the ability to enable digital payments to take place in the same app, without breaking the journey or creating barriers to final payment, which creates opportunities for the customer to churn.

This approach allows consumers to interact with brands in real-time, seeking product recommendations and support, and completing purchases, through one interface. By integrating shopping capabilities into platforms where customers already spend significant time – such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, or voice-activated assistants – businesses can provide a more seamless and interactive purchasing journey, while increasing trust in online transactions. 

How conversational commerce works

Here are some examples of how conversational commerce works in action:

• Use of messaging platforms: Businesses can incorporate chatbots or live chat features into popular messaging apps or their websites, allowing customers to initiate conversations. Some brands allow customers to easily initiate a WhatsApp conversation with their business account through the click of a button, or support customers through their Instagram profiles
• AI-powered chatbots: Some businesses use artificial intelligence and machine learning based bots that interact first with customers that reach out. These bots learn over time and can quickly respond to common inquiries, provide product recommendations, answer questions and assist with purchases – or pull in a human as needed. These are rapidly improving as AI use becomes more widespread and accessible
• Personalized recommendations: By analyzing user data and preferences, conversational commerce tools can offer tailored product suggestions and upsell to customers, enhancing the likelihood of a purchase.
• Seamless transactions: Customers can ideally complete transactions without leaving the chat interface, including via a payment link sent to them in the chat in order to complete the purchase, reducing the likelihood that they will navigate away post-chat engagement 
• Post-purchase support: After a purchase, the same conversational channels can be used for order tracking, customer support, and gathering feedback, fostering easily accessible ongoing customer engagement.

Conversational commerce makes it especially easy for customers to engage with a business on apps and platforms that they are already comfortable using and make purchases without having to navigate away – truly the definition of meeting customers where they’re at. 

Why South Africa is an ideal market for conversational commerce

South Africa presents a strong opportunity for the adoption and growth of conversational commerce, driven by a few factors:

High mobile penetration

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In 2023, a total of 112.7 million cellular mobile connections were active in South Africa – equivalent to 187.4% of the total population – and internet penetration stood at 72.3%. With the majority of the population accessing the internet primarily through mobile devices, there's a strong foundation for mobile-based conversational commerce solutions.

A growing e-commerce sector

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South Africa's e-commerce space has been expanding rapidly, with projections indicating that 10% of retail transactions will take place online by the end of 2025. This trend creates a favorable environment for conversational commerce to enhance online shopping experiences. 

Popular use of messaging apps

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Popular platforms for conversational commerce are widely used across South Africa, with 94% of internet users using WhatsApp in 2023. Facebook and TikTok have a penetration rate of 88% and 74% respectively. The likelihood of customers converting on platforms they use everyday – and where they might discover a product or solution they’re interested in purchasing – is significantly higher than it is when they need to visit a different platform or website. 

Innovative financial solutions

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South African banks and fintech companies are pioneering in integrating conversational commerce into their services. For instance, Nedbank introduced "Money Message," allowing users to make payments via WhatsApp.

These factors collectively position South Africa as an ideal market for conversational commerce, offering businesses opportunities to engage with a tech-savvy consumer base through innovative and convenient platforms.

How Stitch approaches conversational commerce

Stitch Express recently launched, enabling online businesses that leverage e-commerce platforms to offer simple digital payments. Part of their offering includes payment links, which can enable businesses that leverage conversational commerce to easily accept payments in-chat. Payment links are unique links generated by a merchant, which can be sent over any medium – email, chat applications, social media – and take customers to a secure portal where they can pay for their purchase. 

Stitch can support merchants that wish to build out conversational commerce capabilities via payment links, or in creating a full chatbot that walks consumers through the checkout process from start to finish.

Get in touch to schedule a custom conversation and see how the Stitch team can help your business leverage conversational commerce for increased sales and customer engagement.

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