Takealot Accelerates Growth with Streamlined Operations Through CloudSmiths’ Salesforce Implementation

South Africa's leading e-commerce platform, Takealot, transformed its supplier onboarding, personal shopper engagement and retail media operations, resulting in increased efficiency and revenue growth, thanks to the strategic partnership with CloudSmiths and Salesforce.

Revolutionising Seller Onboarding for South Africa’s E-Commerce Leader

Takealot, the largest e-commerce retailer in South Africa, offers a wide range of products across various categories, including electronics, fashion and home appliances. As the company rapidly scaled its operations, the need to improve efficiency across multiple divisions became critical. With over 6,000 sellers going through the onboarding process, managing this volume with speed and accuracy was essential to sustaining Takealot's competitive edge. CloudSmiths stepped in with a tailored Salesforce solution to streamline operations, accelerating the company's ability to onboard sellers, engage personal shoppers and optimise retail media campaigns.

Driving Efficiency in Seller Onboarding and Account Management

Takealot’s Seller Market Division faced the challenge of processing thousands of seller applications while ensuring compliance and accurate documentation, particularly for specialised product categories like electronics. With Salesforce’s Sales Cloud, CloudSmiths implemented a streamlined system that enabled faster seller onboarding by automating document submission, compliance checks and communication flows. This reduced manual effort, allowing Takealot to bring more sellers to market in less time and increase its product listings, ultimately driving revenue growth.

Additionally, Salesforce’s tools empowered Takealot’s account managers to handle larger clients and big brands more effectively, through advanced customer relationship management (CRM) systems and real-time reporting features. Automation and reporting enhancements allowed Takealot to focus on building strong relationships with high-value sellers, scaling the division efficiently.

Enhancing Personal Shopper Experience with Marketing Cloud Automation

Recognising the importance of personalised engagement, Takealot applied the same Salesforce solution to its Personal Shopper Division. Targeting individuals who may not be tech-savvy, this division needed a seamless onboarding process for shoppers purchasing on behalf of others. Salesforce’s Marketing Cloud facilitated the creation of personalised customer journeys, automating communication and engagement with users.

By replicating the success seen in the Seller Market Division, the Personal Shopper Division enhanced its customer experience and freed up internal resources, saving time and enabling a more targeted approach to shopper engagement.

Optimising Retail Media Operations for Better Campaign Performance

As Takealot expanded into retail media, offering electronic advertising across platforms like Google and Facebook, it needed robust campaign management tools to help suppliers maximise their ad spend. Takealot used Advendio with Salesforce's advanced capabilities so that Takealot was able to monitor ad impressions, optimise delivery and ensure campaigns met performance goals. ADvendio is a onesystem for full-process advertising management solutions that support ad sales, media buying, or combined deals.

CloudSmiths customised Salesforce to estimate and track impressions in real-time, solving the challenge of under-delivered campaigns. This level of insight not only improved customer satisfaction but also drove higher conversion rates, making retail media a valuable and growing revenue stream for Takealot.

Outstanding Results and Tangible Business Impact

The impact of CloudSmiths’ Salesforce implementation was clear across all key divisions:

• Seller Onboarding: Reduced the time needed to onboard sellers, bringing products to market faster and increasing overall revenue.
• Account Management: Enabled account managers to better manage relationships with large brands through automation and advanced CRM features.
• Personal Shopper Engagement: Boosted customer engagement and saved human capital with automated, personalised communication journeys.
• Retail Media: Delivered targeted advertising with greater precision, improving ad performance and driving higher conversion rates.

A Grateful Partnership Built on Trust and Expertise

Reflecting on the success of the partnership, a Takealot spokesperson stated:

"We are extremely grateful to CloudSmiths for their invaluable support in streamlining our advertising sales processes. With their expertise and guidance, we were able to optimise our Salesforce implementation and integrate it seamlessly with ADvendio. The results were truly remarkable. Our sales team has enhanced visibility, improved efficiency and increased productivity. CloudSmiths' deep understanding of the Salesforce platform and their dedication to our success have been instrumental in driving revenue growth and delivering exceptional advertising solutions to our suppliers."

Future Outlook: Sustained Growth with Scalable Solutions

Takealot’s partnership with CloudSmiths continues to position the company for long-term success. With Salesforce now deeply embedded in its operations, Takealot is well-prepared to scale further, handle larger seller volumes, expand its personal shopper services and optimise its growing retail media business. By continuously leveraging Salesforce’s capabilities, Takealot is set to remain at the forefront of South African e-commerce innovation.

Enhancing Digital Advertising Sales Processes

Takealot had already implemented ADvendio but wanted to take their advertising sales processes to the next level. We began by analysing their existing processes and unique requirements, devising a strategy to enrich, improve, and automate their advertising sales workflows using ADvendio. The integration of ADvendio with Salesforce was seamless, ensuring smooth data flow between the systems.

Custom Workflows for Streamlined Operations

Leveraging Salesforce’s capabilities, we implemented custom workflows specifically tailored to Takealot’s needs, streamlining the campaign booking process on their website. These custom workflows enhanced visibility into customer interactions, improved forecasting accuracy, and expedited campaign approval times for the sales team.

Achieving Operational Efficiency and Growth

Within just two months, we successfully optimised Takealot’s digital advertising sales processes. The collaboration resulted in a streamlined and efficient digital sales division, with automated processes that allow the team to focus on nurturing customer relationships and driving revenue growth. By integrating Salesforce and ADvendio, Takealot can now make data-driven decisions and deliver exceptional advertising solutions to their suppliers.

The successful optimisation of Takealot’s advertising sales processes not only improved operational efficiency but also positioned them to continue driving growth in the competitive digital advertising landscape.