Former PriceCheck boss Andre de Wet sees South Africa as the next frontier of growth for his e-commerce venture, which gives informal traders a presence online. It will undergo a R57m expansion.
De Wet, who served as CEO of the price comparison platform in 2011-15, recently started Flood, a platform that bridges the gap between the digital and physical worlds in emerging markets, specifically by making offline merchants discoverable online without replicating Western e-commerce models.
Like Amazon and Takealot, which have created marketplaces for third-party sellers, Flood is focusing its efforts on informal traders.
De Wet said 95% of retail in emerging markets is still offline.
“Flood bridges that gap by embedding localised commerce, loyalty and payments directly into the apps people already use, such as telco and banking platforms.”
Flood partners with telecom operators and banks to embed digital commerce tools into their own applications. End users don’t have to download new apps to shop or make digital payments while having the security of knowing they are using trusted platforms.
Flood is also enticing banks and cellphone providers by enabling them to monetise their large audiences and user bases far beyond traditional voice, data and savings products.
The platform is live in Ghana with Telecel and is seeing “substantial week-on-week growth” of 20%-30%.
In August, Flood announced it had raised $3.5m (R57.4m) in seed capital to expand its “super app-as-a-service” footprint in “high growth, mobile-first markets”.
The company is also operating in India and the Maldives, with progress being made to open in Nigeria, Botswana and Mauritius. De Wet is furthermore eyeing East Africa, North Africa — particularly Egypt — and Latin America.
With more than 8,000 merchants onboarded, Flood has facilitated more than $400m in gross merchandise value across 14-million transactions in six countries.
Township economy
De Wet highlighted the importance of the township economy in South Africa. He said established players such as Takealot are trying to help small businesses get online, but Flood’s approach is different because it creates a marketplace where the audience already exists.
“South Africa is going to be an interesting animal. The township economy … spaza shops … we can get them to become discoverable on the digital platforms people use every day.”
He said South Africa is a market with high potential due to established infrastructure and varied consumer behaviour.
South Africa is going to be an interesting animal. The township economy … spaza shops … we can get them to become discoverable on the digital platforms people use every day.
— Andre de Wet, former PriceCheck boss
Data by the Ecommerce Forum South Africa (Efsa), shows that e-commerce in the country has grown from 1% to nearly 10% of retail sales in just five years.
The Efsa study, by the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection (Mistra) in partnership with Takealot, shows South Africa’s e-commerce market is projected to grow to R130bn by 2025.
Like many other businesses in 2026 Flood aims to leverage personalisation, using AI technology to create a “segment of one”, meaning the app experience is personalised to the specific user’s location and preferences.
The expansion into Latin America is driven by the similarities in market dynamics with African countries, specifically the heavy reliance on offline retail and the mobile-first nature of consumers.
De Wet said Flood has seen “tremendous interest” from Central American countries such as Mexico, Chile and Colombia.
“There’s real interest from big players over there. Once we are big enough, we can try Southeast Asia … even though you’re competing with the likes of Grab and Gojek. The Philippines and Indonesia are two massive countries that allow for something like this to happen.”
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