(16 August 2017) This month, South African marketplace bobshop.co.za is turning 18. “As far as we know, this makes us the oldest existing ecommerce site in the country”, says Bob Shop Marketing Manager Joni Calitz.

To mark its 18th birthday, Bob Shop is organising a unique online sale. Hundreds of brand new, desirable products will appear on the site, each priced at only R18. The products are supplied by some of the top Bob Shop sellers and include many best selling items on the site.

Online shoppers will have a rare chance to walk away with cooking pots and hoverboards,  CCTV camera kits and remote control toys, luggage sets and sunglasses, watches and smartwatches, plus many more products, each and every one of them priced at R18. There will even be several R1,000 Bob Shop shopping vouchers up for grabs for just R18 each. 

The sale opens on 21 August and lasts until 27 August 2017.

“All R18 birthday items will be shipped to buyers within South Africa free of charge”, says Calitz. “There will be no additional costs”, she adds. “In this way, we want to say a big thank you to all our users, because they are the ones who have made possible Bob Shop’s amazing ecommerce journey”.

As illustrated by the 18 years of Bob Shop infographic, published on the site, that journey is paved with numerous milestones.

Founded in August 1999 as an online auction website, Bob Shop realised that some online shoppers prefer to buy straight away. As a consequence, buy-now listings, were introduced two years later. In 2015, buyers were enabled to negotiate fixed prices with the participating sellers through the Bob Shop system, with the make an offer functionality.
There are many other examples of how Bob Shop has kept up with the changing habits of online shoppers. Payments methods were expanded to include credit card, bitcoin and even shopping on credit. A mobi site and shopping apps for Android and iOS were added. And several shipping options were integrated to help ease one of the biggest problems of South African ecommerce, the delivery.

“The reward for moving with the times is the growing number of buyers and sellers and products listed on the site”, says Bob Shop Marketing Manager.

In 2007, Bob Shop had about 50,000 listings. Ten years later, that number surpassed 3 million. Most of the listings are for brand-new, popular products. However, Bob Shop continues to cultivate its “second-hand and vintage” image of bygone times, though “unique, rare and collectible” is much more prominent on the site than purely second-hand.