Cape Town-based Touchfoundry has worked with Takealot to develop a platform that helps its network of Personal Shoppers to manage and grow the businesses they have built around online shopping.
Takealot’s Personal Shopper Programme empowers thousands of township entrepreneurs to use their standing as trusted members of their communities to help local shoppers access the benefits of online shopping. Personal Shoppers support customers through the shopping journey, making it easier for more people to buy from Takealot while building businesses of their own.
South Africa’s online retail market is forecast to reach R159 billion in 2026, according to World Wide Worx, highlighting the growing opportunity for entrepreneurs to participate in the country’s digital economy.
As the programme grew, Takealot identified an opportunity to give Personal Shoppers better tools to manage their day-to-day operations and scale their businesses. Takealot partnered with Touchfoundry to develop a dedicated mobile app and Community Manager dashboard, bringing key business information and workflows into a more accessible, structured experience.
“The app has made it much easier for Personal Shoppers to run their businesses. They can now manage everything in one place,” says Fezile Nqiwa, Head of Venture: Personal Shopper Programme at Takealot.
The platform gives Personal Shoppers a clearer view of their sales, commissions, targets and progression through programme tiers. This helps them keep track of their performance and understand how their businesses are developing.
Developed over a six-month period from discovery to launch, the project required Touchfoundry to run discovery and development in parallel, delivering the build within the agreed budget and timeline.
“You’re not just building a product for someone to shop. You’re building technology for someone who is helping other people shop, while running a business themselves. That changes what you have to think about when you design and build the system,” says Fabio Longano, CEO and founder of Touchfoundry.
“The challenge was to give Personal Shoppers the functionality they need to manage their businesses through a straightforward mobile experience,” explains Longano. “We had to make the experience accessible to people with different levels of familiarity with technology, while meeting Takealot’s security and integration requirements. The aim was to keep the experience simple for users while managing the complexity behind the scenes.”
The app and Community Manager dashboard were developed with input from Takealot’s product, technical, security and compliance teams. Isoflow supported usability, design and user experience.
The result is a digital platform designed around the needs of entrepreneurs who help others shop online, giving Personal Shoppers practical tools to manage their work, monitor performance and build their businesses. It sits between a consumer shopping experience and a business management tool, while operating inside the infrastructure of a major online retailer.