We talk to Raru about their first year in SA online retail

By Lola at Tuesday, June 02, 2015 2:51:00 PM

Raru is celebrating their first birthday today. We caught up with Raru Director, Neil Smith, for a chat about the past, current specials and what South African customers can expect from Raru going forward.

What's been your biggest challenges/stumbling blocks so far?

I can't think off hand of any major stumbling blocks. The biggest challenges though have been making the SA online buying public aware of Raru as another place to shop online. Being a new player it takes some time for customers to get used to you, and then start to make use of our services.

We know from experience this is more of a marathon instead of a quick sprint. So every little bit we add to the site, every improvement, all accumulate to provide an all round excellent experience for our customers.

Greatest moment of the past year?

Getting the first customer sale last year on the 2nd of June 2014. Until then it had taken most of the first half of 2014 setting up the business, getting premises, employing staff, getting suppliers on board and then starting to load the products on the site. After a few months of this, making the site live to the public and getting that first sale in was a really great moment.

What can SA customers expect from Raru in year two?

We are only just getting started. The first year has mostly been about smoothing out the whole process. To ensure a smooth as possible shopping experience for our customers.

Year two will be about building on these initial site foundations, and laying the framework for the coming years. These will include more departments on the site, expanding our import ranges, and just making the whole online shopping experience as painless as possible. We are very focused on providing as wide as possible range of products on the site.

Any shout outs?

The positive feedback we've received from the SA online community has been fantastic thus far, especially from sites like GameZone. We are also running a site survey for June and since yesterday have had hundreds of entrants also adding very insightful feedback and suggestions to us. We'll be working through these as quickly as possible, and in the coming months expect quite a number of these suggestions to be added to the site.

Raru: Twitter | Website | Facebook

What's on special this week?

You can win a PlayStation 4 if you complete the birthday sale survey.
Check out the DVD sale.
There's a winter price-drop sale on blu-ray movies.
One day left to grab some gaming hardware on discount.

Happy birthday from MWEB GameZone

Remember the very successful Take2, that's now the very successful Takealot? It was the brainchild of the guys who now own Raru. They founded Take-Two in 2002 and sold it in 2010. So although it's Raru's first birthday, it's not their first rodeo. I've been running GameZone's "special gaming deals" series for over a year now, and what I've seen of Raru so far is very impressive. They hit the two sweet spots that any consumer want perfect: Best prices and speedy delivery.

What more can we ask.

We wish Raru all the best for year two. May you have happy customers, competitive prices, and awesome gaming stock.