TFG has amplified its online shopping presence with the launch of myTFGworld.com. By repositioning its ecommerce platform as a marketplace, TFG eCommerce is no longer competing with the single retail brand sites of their competitors but is taking on global marketplaces such as Amazon.com.
The shopping experience on myTFGworld.com is skewed towards women, who make up a greater percentage of TFG’s online shoppers, offering a fully inclusive, curated story-driven space to showcase key trends, and related products available from high end to best value. The customer experience is more a modern, experiential interface than a tactical “hunt and shoot” online store.
“The majority of TFG’s online shoppers are women so while we will not ignore men, there is a slant towards women as our primary audience,” says TFG CIO Brent Curry. “There are also experiences to bring customers back daily, including daily recipes, weather forecasts and playlists.”
TFG currently has 17 of its brands trading online including @home, Donna, Foschini, Markham and Totalsports. Now, in addition, myTFGworld offers a single URL to access the product from all those brands, alongside affiliate brands not within the TFG stable including book store Readers’ Warehouse, French gift chain Pylones, the world’s largest toy store Hamley’s, and flower and gifting service Bloomable.
TFG aims to have at least 40 affiliate brands on the marketplace by 2020 financial year end, to cover diverse categories including travel, gifting, toys, books, flowers, food, meals, education, décor, pets, babies, data, ticketing, streaming and drones, amongst many others.
“myTFGworld is South Africa’s first online marketplace, supported by 2 652 brick stores. The vision for myTFGworld is to be a very large player in the online space, so when you think online shopping you think myTFGworld. We want to ensure that TFG is ready for Amazon’s entry into the market,” says Curry.
“In addition, much of what TFG owns is homegrown. This factor has been shown, particularly in Amazon’s evolution, to be important to success in ecommerce. Retailer’s with homegrown brands have higher margins, more control, and a better customer interface. The majority of what we sell is manufactured and controlled locally, so has the added benefit of local job creation ”
The marketplace will supplement gaps in TFG’s product offering through the addition of affiliate brands.
“As a truly customer-centric team, we place emphasis on ensuring the goods and services on our platform will offer customers a one- stop- shop experience ,” says Curry. “We have to make it as convenient as possible for customers to shop for as much as possible in one checkout. So while we have launched the marketplace with 5 affiliates, customers will see these partnerships grow rapidly.”
The customer experience on myTFGworld is geared toward the people who do the most shopping: women. The experience is therefore fundamentally different to what currently exists online in SA.
Visit myTFGworld.com to browse and shop.