OneCart, the online shopping logistics firm, has been acquired by Walmart-owned retail group Massmart after several months of talks. Massmart will own the vast majority of the shares in the business, with a minority being retained by Lyndon Peters, co-founder of OneCart, as well another unnamed shareholder.
Read: Apple’s next CarPlay push could control parts of your ride
“Massmart is pleased to announce that the negotiations have now successfully been concluded and a sale of shares and subscription agreement has been signed whereby the company will, through its wholly owned subsidiary Fresh Food Direct, acquire an equity shareholding ultimately constituting 87.5% of the issued shares in OneCart,” Massmart said in a statement to shareholders.
“OneCart represents one of the building blocks of our broader e-commerce strategy. This acquisition will allow Massmart to further expand its capabilities in the fast-growing on-demand delivery segment, while continuing to support the independent retailer marketplace model of OneCart,” Massmart said.
OneCart partners with various retailers in South Africa to offer a single platform where customers can fill their virtual carts from any of the retailers. It tries to simplify the shopping experience without the need to order from various marketplaces separately. It then charges the customer for delivery as well as a concierge fee, to cover the cost of the partner putting the order together from the different retailers.
It is still early days, but the platform currently offers access to products across the dry grocery, frozen and fresh foods, liquor, baby, health and beauty, household and pet supplies categories, all made available to consumers via a single shopping interface. There are plans to add various other types of retailers to the platform in the months and years to come, hoping to become the customer’s one-stop-shop for all their online retail shopping needs.
The value of the transaction was not disclosed.
