Cape Town - With Christmas around the corner and most mall shopping a nightmare at the best of times, an online solution aims to bring the "ho ho ho" into the festive season.
Online retailer kalahari.com has partnered with Uber in Cape Town to deliver gifts in the week up to 25 December.
"Named the #UBERSleigh, the service launches officially in Cape Town on 18 December, and will be running between 10:00 and 16:00 daily up until 24 December," kalahari said of the service, which is available to Uber subscribers.
Three vans have been decorated with Christmas trim and marked with both Uber and kalahari branding. They will carry gifts priced at under R1 000 which is payable directly from the Uber application via a credit card.
The idea of the pilot project which launches officially on Thursday is to boost online shopping, particularly at a time of year when malls are notoriously busy.
Online growth
"We know most people would love to avoid busy malls, and bringing Santa to their doorsteps takes the magic of online shopping to a new level," said Liz Hillock, marketing director of kalahari.com.
Shopping is moving online and the recent Black Friday sales in the US demonstrated that mobile is making up a bigger slice of the pie.
Online sales on the massive shopping day grew 20.6% over 2013 numbers, with sales on mobile devices making up around 30% of a total of $40bn.
Research firm eMarketer expects mobile commerce to grab around 1.2% of online sales this year in an online retailing market expected to grow to $304bn.
The kalahari gang was swamped by Capetonians as they made a whistle stop visit in the city bowl. (Duncan Alfreds, Fin24)
The partnership may also be useful for Uber to counteract some of the negative publicity the ride-sharing app has attracted around the world.
Beyond attacks on riders, the start-up valued at around $40bn has faced numerous lawsuits and even outright bans in various countries where it operates.
During the Sydney hostage drama where a gunman held up a coffee shop, Uber hiked fares out of the city to A$100 (US$82), as a result of "surge pricing".
Uber later apologised and raced to offer free rides and refund those who had paid the fees.
To take advantage of the Uber-kalahari partnership this festive season, users have to install the Uber app while kalahari warns that the service may experience high demand. The Uber application is available for download on all major mobile app stores.
Watch how locals embraced the team from kalahari.com.
* Fin24 is part of 24.com, a subsidiary of Media24 which is in the Naspers stable. kalahari is a subsidiary of Naspers.
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