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Shopify Stores in South Africa

Updated Feb 28 2025

There are 17,430 live Shopify stores in South Africa.

In this report, we'll cover the following essential statistics on Shopify stores in South Africa.

Download a complete list of Shopify stores in South Africa with a paid account.
Create a free account to get a feel for the data we provide.

Shopify Growth in South Africa

Shopify's worldwide quarter-over-quarter growth has been quite impressive over the last few years, and that trend is visible within most countries.

  • Shopify stores in South Africa increased 6.2% quarter-over-quarter in 2024 Q4.
  • Shopify stores in South Africa increased 13% year-over-year in 2024 Q4.

Here is Shopify's quarter-over-quarter growth in South Africa.

Quarter
Active Stores
2019 Q1
5,120
2019 Q2
5,631
2019 Q3
6,087
2019 Q4
6,506
2020 Q1
6,578
2020 Q2
7,655
2020 Q3
8,177
2020 Q4
8,838
2021 Q1
9,179
2021 Q2
9,569
2021 Q3
10,095
2021 Q4
10,133
2022 Q1
9,657
2022 Q2
10,307
2022 Q3
11,322
2022 Q4
12,016
2023 Q1
12,626
2023 Q2
13,039
2023 Q3
13,582
2023 Q4
14,567
2024 Q1
14,634
2024 Q2
15,332
2024 Q3
16,108
2024 Q4
16,420
2025 Q1 (to date)
17,430
Active Stores by Quarter
2019 Q12019 Q22019 Q32019 Q42020 Q12020 Q22020 Q32020 Q42021 Q12021 Q22021 Q32021 Q42022 Q12022 Q22022 Q32022 Q42023 Q12023 Q22023 Q32023 Q42024 Q12024 Q22024 Q32024 Q42025 Q102,0004,0006,0008,00010,00012,00014,00016,00018,000

Note: the store counts displayed in this section are based on actual historical store counts.

It's hard to know exactly when a Shopify store was first created but we use a heuristic combining DNS and WHOIS data that provides a reasonable approximation.

Top Categories For Shopify Stores In South Africa

Here is the breakdown of industry verticals for Shopify stores in South Africa.

  • 23.8% of Shopify stores in South Africa sell Apparel products.
  • 14.6% of Shopify stores in South Africa sell Home & Garden products.
  • 12.5% of Shopify stores in South Africa sell Beauty & Fitness products.
ApparelHome & GardenNoneBeauty & FitnessFood & DrinkHealthSportsPeople & SocietyConsumer ElectronicsBusiness & IndustrialComputersToys & HobbiesAutos & VehiclesArts & EntertainmentPets & Animals

Social Media Usage On Shopify Stores In South Africa

Ecommerce brands use social media sites to engage with millions of consumers. Instagram and Facebook are the dominant social media sites for ecommerce stores, by far, with Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube also having notable usage.

  • Instagram is used by 50.9% of Shopify stores in South Africa.
  • Facebook is used by 37.9% of Shopify stores in South Africa.
  • YouTube is used by 9.5% of Shopify stores in South Africa.
Type
Stores
Instagram
8,873
Facebook
6,612
YouTube
1,648
Tiktok
1,623
Twitter
1,309
LinkedIn
754
WhatsApp
349
Pinterest
304

Contact Information On Shopify Stores In South Africa

Email remains an extremely popular communication channel for merchants. Many merchants also provide a phone number so that their customers can reach them instantly.

  • 62% of Shopify stores in South Africa have an email on their website
  • 46% of Shopify stores in South Africa provide a phone number on their website
Type
Stores
Email
10,732
Phone
7,974

Shopify Plus Stores In South Africa

There are 91 Shopify Plus stores in South Africa. For more information on Shopify Plus, read our Shopify Plus report.

Provinces With The Most Shopify Stores In South Africa

It's relatively easy to identify the country in which an ecommerce store operates. However, very few ecommerce stores provide a location to the province-level or city-level and even fewer provide a street address.

Here is the province distribution of Shopify stores in South Africa. Note that we're only showing the top 15 locations here but you can see the full list within Store Leads.

  • 7,878 Shopify stores in South Africa are based in Gauteng.
  • 5,308 Shopify stores in South Africa are based in Western Cape.
  • 1,876 Shopify stores in South Africa are based in KwaZulu-Natal.

Cities With The Most Shopify Stores in South Africa

Here is the city distribution of Shopify stores in South Africa. Note that we're only showing the top 15 locations here but you can see the full list within Store Leads.

  • 4,299 Shopify stores in South Africa are based in Cape Town.
  • 2,391 Shopify stores in South Africa are based in Johannesburg.
  • 1,425 Shopify stores in South Africa are based in Pretoria.
City
Stores
4,299
2,391
1,425
878
781
774
475
434
312
227
185
183

Top Shopify Apps in South Africa

Here are the top 10 apps, ordered by number of installs, across all Shopify stores in South Africa.

With a paid account on Store Leads, you'll be able to see which stores have installed specific apps. You can also see when specific apps were installed (or uninstalled) by each store.

Number of Employees for Shopify stores in South Africa

  • 96.1% of Shopify stores in South Africa have Unknown employees.
  • 1.6% of Shopify stores in South Africa have 1 - 9 employees.
  • 0.7% of Shopify stores in South Africa have 10 - 24 employees.

Here is the breakdown of Shopify stores in South Africa by the number of employees.

Employees
Stores
Unknown
16,743
1 - 9
281
10 - 24
114
25 - 49
91
50 - 99
55
100 - 249
63
250 - 999
41
1000 - 4999
33
5000+
9
Unknown1 - 9

Top Shipping Carriers For Shopify Stores In South Africa

  • 2.0% of Shopify stores in South Africa ship by UPS.
  • 1.6% of Shopify stores in South Africa ship by Fedex.
  • 0.8% of Shopify stores in South Africa ship by Fastway.

Here are the top shipping carriers for Shopify stores in South Africa.

Shipping Carrier
Stores
UPS
351
Fedex
287
Fastway
144
USPS
121
DHL
35
Aramex
33
Royal Mail
17
China Post
11
Australia Post
11
DSV
8

Top-level Domain Distribution For Shopify Stores In South Africa

.com is the most common top-level domain, by far, for world-wide Shopify stores. Some countries have been faster than others to adopt alternate (such as country-specific) top-level domains.

  • 54.0% of Shopify stores in South Africa have a .co.za domain.
  • 34.5% of Shopify stores in South Africa have a .com domain.
  • 5.1% of Shopify stores in South Africa have a .store domain.

Here is the top-level domain distribution for Shopify stores in South Africa.

Top-level Domain
Stores
.co.za
9,418
.com
6,007
.store
893
.shop
299
.online
141
.co
126
.net
86
.africa
83
.org
69
.com.co
17
.co.za.com.store.shop

Top Shopify Stores In South Africa

Here are the top stores in South Africa ordered by worldwide store rank.

Name
Domain
Rank
Created
EDGARS
11,017
2019/08/16
Ackermans
11,424
2016/12/30
AA
12,793
2016/12/30
www.pepstores.com
16,068
2016/12/30
PLANTIFY
17,634
2016/11/18

Get more insights on Shopify stores

Our search interface is easy to use and helps you find the Shopify stores that are relevant to you.

You can segment stores on a variety of dimensions:

  • Social Media accounts
  • Email address
  • Phone numbers
  • Country
  • Installed Apps
  • Theme and Theme Vendor
  • Number of Products Sold
  • Third-party technologies
  • Creation date
  • Platform
  • Top-level domains
  • Domain status
  • Domain type
Filter stores on social media presence
Filter on stores with Facebook accounts.

For more insights on Shopify stores, create a free account and have a look for yourself.

Other Reports

Have a look at these other reports to get a taste for what you can do with Store Leads.