Ecommerce agency for South African online stores
As an ecommerce agency for South African online stores, we work on the pages that sell (product and category pages) and on what sends shoppers to them: free product listings on Google through Merchant Center, and Meta ads on Facebook and Instagram.
We track each sale to the channel that produced it and check the totals against your store's own order count. The monthly report shows revenue and return on ad spend by channel, in rand, so you can see which channel pays and which only looks busy.
Card declines were the biggest cause of abandoned carts in World Wide Worx's Online Retail in South Africa 2026 study: 61.2% of the 201 retailers surveyed named them, up from 27.9% a year earlier (TechCentral, 2 September 2026).
In the same study, 89.1% of retailers offered EFT or bank transfer and 54.7% offered buy now, pay later (TechCentral, 2 September 2026).
Where online sales start
Product searches
Someone types "trail running shoes size 10" or a model number, and Google often shows a row of Shopping results first: product photos, prices and store names, pulled from Merchant Center feeds. Google's Merchant Center Help says a product missing a required detail, such as its price, availability or image, can't show in ads or free listings (checked October 2026). Below that row, product pages that state the model, sizes and specs in plain text rank for the long, exact searches people type when they're ready to buy.
Category searches
"Linen duvet covers", "baby car seats", "braai accessories". These are broader and more competitive, and Google tends to rank category pages for them. A category page needs a few lines that answer what a shopper is weighing up, filters that work, and links to your best sellers. A grid of forty products with no words gives Google little to rank.
Social feeds
Some sales start on Instagram instead. Someone sees a product, taps through, leaves, and comes back a week later by searching for your store's name. Meta ads build that demand, so the report has to credit them for the sales they start as well as the ones they finish.
At checkout, shoppers look for the delivery cost and the way they want to pay before they commit. In the World Wide Worx study that TechCentral reported on 2 September 2026, retailers put card declines first and shipping fees second (51.7%) among the causes of abandoned carts. A second way to pay and a delivery cost shown early are worth testing before you spend more on ads.
Work on the store and its channels
Product and category page SEO
Titles and descriptions in the words shoppers type, product details in text Google can read (sizes, materials, model numbers), product markup so price and stock show in search results, and category pages with enough text to rank. We also fix the duplicate pages that filters and variants create, which split your rankings.
Merchant Center and free listings
A clean feed in Google Merchant Center with accurate prices, stock, delivery costs and images, and the disapprovals cleared. That feed is what free listings run on. Google's Merchant Center Help says that with a free listing, "the products you sell can appear at no cost on Google Search, Google Maps, Gemini, YouTube, the Shopping tab, Google Images, and Google Lens", though being eligible doesn't guarantee they'll be shown (Free listings for products, checked October 2026).
Meta ads from your catalogue
Your product catalogue connected to Meta, ads that show people the products they viewed, and campaigns for new customers kept separate from the ones aimed at past buyers. That split stops a remarketing campaign from taking credit for customers you already had.
Sales tracked to the channel
Google Analytics 4 purchase events and Meta conversion tracking, each checked against your store's own orders. When the platforms add up to more sales than your store took, we show you the gap and which figures we go by.
Checkout and delivery details
Delivery cost and delivery time on the product page, payment options (card, EFT, buy now, pay later) visible before checkout, and a look at where people drop out of your checkout. We'd fix these before raising ad spend.
Products in AI answers
Shoppers ask AI assistants for "the best budget air fryer in South Africa". We check whether your products and store come up, and fix the product pages and listings those answers draw on. More on AI search.
What the ECT Act asks of an online store
Section 43(1) of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002 lists what a business selling online must make available on its website. The list has 18 items, among them "the full price of the goods or services, including transport costs, taxes and any other fees or costs", "the manner of payment", "the time within which the goods will be dispatched or delivered" and "the return, exchange and refund policy of that supplier".
If a store doesn't comply, section 43(3) says the shopper "may cancel the transaction within 14 days of receiving the goods". The price with delivery, the payment options and the delivery time are all on that list, and they're where the checkout work above starts.
Sales in rand, by channel
Every figure is checked against the orders in your store.
Revenue by channel
Sales from organic search, free listings on Google, Meta ads and email, with the number of orders behind each.
Return on ad spend
Revenue for every rand spent on each ad channel and, if you share margins with us, profit after ad spend, so a busy channel that loses money is easy to spot.
Feed health
Products disapproved or limited in Merchant Center this month, and what we fixed.
Products and categories
Which product and category pages brought in organic sales, and which slipped.
What we'll test next
The next change and the reason for it, such as moving budget from a Meta campaign that mostly reaches past buyers to one that finds new ones.
Our prices are on the site
Seven of the twelve South African agencies that rank most often on Google don't publish a pricing page. We'd rather you knew before we speak.
12 agencies checked across 19 searches, September 2026.
We're not registered for VAT, so no VAT is added to our prices. Contracts run for three months minimum, then month to month.
Where to start
You can start with one of these and add another once the first is paying its way.
Rankings on Google and Google Maps for the searches your customers type. Technical fixes, service pages that answer the question, and links from sites people in your industry read.
SEO in Cape TownFrom R7,500 a month
SEO pricingGetting your business named when someone asks AI assistants who to use, from ChatGPT and Gemini to Google's AI Overviews, Copilot, Perplexity and Claude. We track what they say about you, then fix the pages and listings they draw on.
Fast sites built to turn a visit into a call or a form. The domain, the site and the logins are in your name.
Web design in Cape TownFrom R14,500
Website pricingPosts and a small ad budget on up to two of Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok, measured on the leads and sales they bring in.
Your first 90 days
Step Month 1: Tracking you can trust
We check that orders in your store match purchases in Google Analytics and Meta, fix what doesn't match, and audit your Merchant Center feed for disapprovals and missing details. This month's figures become the baseline.
Step Month 2: Feed, categories and Meta campaigns
Feed fixes go live so more of your products can show in free listings, Meta campaigns for new customers are split from the ones aimed at past buyers, and we rewrite your top category pages and the product pages for your best sellers.
Step Month 3: What we cut, and what we test
A full month of revenue and return on ad spend by channel, what we cut and why, and what we'll test in month four. Ad changes show within days. Category pages usually take three to six months to rank for competitive searches.
What store owners ask
Usually not. Shopify, WooCommerce and most custom builds can carry clean product data, markup and tracking. We'd only suggest a move if your platform blocks something you need, such as text on category pages. If we suggest moving platforms, we explain why in writing.
If people already search for what you sell, start with your product pages and Merchant Center feed, because those shoppers are looking. If your product is new or visual and nobody searches for it yet, Meta ads build the demand. Once both are tracked properly, the budget goes to whichever returns more.
Each one counts sales by its own rules, and Meta counts any sale its ads had a hand in, so one order can be claimed twice. We use your store's order count as the total and show each channel's share of it.
Feed fixes and campaign changes show within days to weeks. Product and category pages are slower: three to six months is normal for a competitive search.
SEO starts at R7,500 a month, and social media and Meta ads at R6,500 a month. Ad spend is separate. We're not registered for VAT, so no VAT is added to our prices.
Find out where your sales are slipping
Send us your store's website. We'll check how your products show up in Google search and Shopping results, run a quick AI check of 5 prompts in ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and Gemini, and send back the five fixes we'd make first.