Good news about Takealot’s one-hour delivery service

Takealot’s on-demand delivery service, TakealotNow, is expanding its services to Pretoria in July.

This is happening through the launch of a new branch, which will enable TakealotNow to begin serving regions in Pretoria.

Takealot did not confirm where in Pretoria the service would be available.

Group CEO Frederik Zietsman revealed the plan at a recent media roundtable event, where he also announced that the service will be rolled out nationally over time.

“We refer to it as a jet ski that will become a Titanic one day,” said Zietsman.

TakealotNow launched in 2023 as a trial that was initially only available to Cape Town’s northern suburbs, including Durbanville, Bellville, Brackenfell, Kraaifontein, Kuilsriver and Parow.

It then expanded to Gauteng, and in May 2024, the company announced that it was expanding the service to the greater Cape Town area.

The TakealotNow service offers a selection of curated products for one-hour delivery, including laptops, smartphones, beauty products, kids’ toys, and alternative energy products.

The TakealotNow service is available within the Mr D app, and shoppers can find it in the dedicated Shops tab on the delivery platform.

“The customer wants things immediately and the beauty of our model is that we have a significant amount of data that tells us what customers want and what they are willing to wait for,” said Zietsman.

Zietsman also said that the service essentially bridges the gap between Takealot.com and Mr D, delivering Takealot marketplace products with the speed of a Mr D food delivery.

He explained that there is still work to be done in this respect, as Mr D is still largely viewed as a food delivery service.

Takealot is focused on repositioning Mr D’s image accordingly so that customers know they can get anything from the platform.

TakealotMore

Those who have signed up for the company’s new TakealotMore subscription will enjoy free deliveries on TakealotNow.

TakealotMore launched on Thursday, 9 May 2024, offering customers a subscription service for free deliveries and collections for orders on Takealot.com and Mr D.

The company introduced the service shortly after Amazon launched its South African marketplace, pre-empting the launch of Amazon Prime in the country.

Unlike Amazon Prime, TakealotMore offers two subscription tiers — Standard at R39 per month and Premium for R99 per month.

For orders with a minimum value of R500, the Standard plan offers two free same-day deliveries and collections per month and unlimited free next-day deliveries and collections.

The Standard subscription also provides one free Mr D takeaway order with a minimum value of R150 and one free Mr D grocery order with a minimum value of R350.

Premium provides unlimited same-day, next-day, and standard deliveries and collections for Takealot orders, as well as ten free deliveries of bulky items in a month.

On Mr D, Premium subscribers will get five free deliveries for orders with a minimum value of R150 and unlimited grocery deliveries for orders with a minimum value of R350.

Amazon Prime also bundles access to the company’s streaming services, which Zietsman said they are open to exploring.

Zietsman said the Takealot Group could execute a project of this scale and would work with a partner to achieve it.

However, Zietsman said that Takealot is committed to investigating and deploying the services that its customers want the most.

If its research found that a streaming service made sense, Takealot would seriously consider creating one.

This move would be comparable to Amazon’s Prime Video offering, which is included in its Amazon Prime subscription service.

However, Zietsman speculated that “copying a Prime model might not make sense” for Takealot.

“Maybe South African consumers want something else. Maybe accessible healthcare, maybe content. I’m just saying that streaming is one of the elements that is possible in the future,” said Zietsman.