OVER the past few years the SA businessto-consumer e-commerce arena has been characterised by the fact that most of those that have taken to the web have been smaller, purely internet-based start-up companies.

However, of late, the traditional bricks-and-mortar chain-stores are starting to move to the web.

An example of this is inthebag, an online shopping initiative launched last October by Woolworths and the Wooltru group.

It offers a full range of products from Woolworths, including national branded groceries, as available from their local supermarkets, and a limited range of music CDs and books.

Jessica Knight, CEO of inthebag, says that more than 60% of the site's customers are women and the majority have children.

Customers can do their shopping between 8am and 10pm for next-day delivery at a specified address, and can get help from a call centre between 7am and 11pm if they need it.

They can pick a two-hour delivery slot and have the shopping delivered anywhere in their area at a cost R35, or pay R30 if the delivery time is open.

More than 50% of the customers order in the evening and most orders are for next-day delivery, says Knight.

She says first-time on-line buyers take between 45 minutes to an hour to complete a transaction, but once they get used to it, and use their prior shopping experience for future purchases, this can be reduced to about 10 minutes.

Wooltru and Woolworths saw this as an opportunity to expand their customer base, on the premise that the internet buying experience, coupled with a bricks-and-mortar infrastructure, is the only way to justify business-to-consumer e-commerce, says Knight.

She says more than 300000 visitors have visited the website and 12000 customers have registered on the site.

'And 30% of buyers are not regular Woolworths shoppers,' she says.

The service is available in the greater metropolitan area of Cape Town and in Johannesburg's northern, western and southern suburbs.

The average virtual shopping-bag value is more than R400, which is significantly above that of the average of an instore shop, says Knight.