Amazon reveals top-selling products in South Africa

Amazon.co.za’s top-selling products in its first year of operation in South Africa were everyday essential items like toilet paper, dishwashing tablets, shampoo, and household cleaning liquids.

MyBroadband recently asked the e-commerce giant about its performance and milestones shortly after the its local marketplace’s first birthday.

After many years of speculation, Amazon.co.za launched on 7 May 2024. The website initially recorded substantial traffic, and Google Search queries showed it enjoyed great interest among South Africans.

The hype quickly died down, as people were disappointed by the fairly limited selection of products and the lack of Amazon Prime services.

However, e-commerce experts explained that a slow start is nothing unusual for Amazon and that it has ended up dominating in many markets after years of measured growth.

Amazon Sub-Saharan Africa managing director Robert Koen told MyBroadband the store’s emphasis has been on keeping local customers happy.

“Our focus has been simple: listen to customers, learn fast, and keep improving to better serve their needs,” Koen said.

“Everything we’ve done this past year — from expanding our product selection to enabling faster delivery— has been driven by what South African customers have told us they want and expect from Amazon.”

Koen said that Amazon.co.za had significantly expanded its product selection over the past year by deepening its existing categories and expanding with new categories.

The marketplace launched with 22 categories but increased to 28 with the addition of Everyday Essentials, Luggage, Jewellery, Groceries, Pet Food, and Vitamins & Supplements.

In addition, it increased package pickup points from 3,000 to 4,300 and rolled out same-day deliveries in Johannesburg and Cape Town.

As a result of continued logistics enhancements, Koen said some orders in these cities were being delivered within five hours.

Koen said Amazon.co.za was particularly proud of launching its dedicated storefront for local products called Shop Mzansi in September 2024.

“We’ve also invested in building a thriving seller community with thousands of registered sellers through initiatives like the Seller Success Centre in Cape Town, a global first for Amazon,” Koen said.

“By empowering local entrepreneurs to reach customers nationwide through its marketplace, Amazon is contributing to small business growth and job creation across South Africa’s digital economy,” Koen said.

Lots and lots and lots of toilet paper

Koen revealed that Amazon’s best-selling products by volume during its first year were everyday essentials, similar to what South Africa’s biggest online retailer Takealot has experienced in recent years.

“These include items such as toilet paper, dishwasher tablets and dishwashing liquid, liquid hand wash, bleach, steam irons, nappies, shampoo, body wash, multipurpose cleaner and sunscreen,” he said.

He added that the store had sold enough toilet paper to cover the distance from Cape Town to Cairo and back twice.

MyBroadband crunched the numbers to see if we could estimate roughly how many rolls that would be.

Popular brand BabySoft has 350 sheets in a roll of its 2-ply toilet paper, which is sold on Amazon.co.za.

Each sheet is typically around 10 centimetres long, which means a single roll should measure roughly 35 metres.

Cape Town and Cairo are roughly 7,240km apart as the crow flies. The distance covered going back and forth twice works out to around 28,960km or 28.96 million metres.

That means that Amazon.co.za sold over 827,000 toilet rolls in just one year.