May’s success story comes from the creator of Nextbuy, based out of Gauteng. Yudi Cohen and team have created quite a unique online offering where you can make an offer on any of the products on their site. Here’s a rundown of our chat:
JH: How long have you had your Shopify store?
YC: We started our first online store back in 2013 that sold wifi products then in May 2015 we launched a second store called Nextbuy. The concept of Nextbuy is to sell really cool gear like hover boards or action cameras and drones, but the catch is we allow our customers to make us an offer so you can get a really good deal on a product you love.
JH: What prompted you to start selling online using Shopify?
YC: We had been supplying retailers with our products for a while and decided to add an online store as a channel to help gain more exposure for our brand. We’d seen Shopify mentioned a few times here and there so decided to give it a try.
JH: How did you find the setup process?
YC: The setup process was more challenging than I had expected to be honest. There were certain elements that I thought would be available automatically on the native platform but I had to learn the hard way that we needed apps to customise our site to be exactly the way we wanted it. We ended up hiring external expertise to set up the site for us which was costly in time as well as money.
JH: Do you use uAfrica’s shipping and/or multichannel? What do you use it for?
YC: Yes we do. We use all of uAfrica’s products. The Multichannel is helpful because it puts our products onto bidorbuy with minimal effort from our side and the shipping interface is very convenient. It’s made our delivery process much more streamlined.
JH: What do you find is the most convenient aspect of using uAfrica?
YC: The integrated shipping is the best thing for us. We need everything to run as smoothly as it can so having access to the couriers and being able to pick a quote so quickly and simply is a fantastic feature. We also save a lot of time on booking the collections now, which is just a click of a button instead of a phone call. There’s also the returns now, that’s a big help too.
JH: What is in your business strategy for the next 12 months?
YC: To grow organically. We really want to focus on pushing the ‘Make an Offer’ feature on our site because we believe that our customers are in for really great deals. We’re aiming to increase the range of products we offer as well, we’re adding cell phones in the next few weeks, so we want to increase our following and have more customers try out the Make an Offer feature and spread the word.
JH: Out of 10, how would you rate your experience using uAfrica.com and why?
YC: 8/10. The service is really good and the uAfrica team is always willing to advise and solve problems.
We had a browse around the website and so far the action cameras and the drones are our favourite things. Head over to www.nextbuy.co.za to find some amazing deals on quality products.
