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South African e-commerce software
Your own online store.
Yours to keep.
EmCart is complete e-commerce software for South African businesses. Install it on your own hosting, add your products and start selling — with 7 ways to get paid, live courier rates, lockers and a drag-and-drop page builder built in. Pay once. No monthly licence fees.
- 166 features built in
- Pay by PayFast or EFT
- Set up with the easy wizard
What is EmCart?
One purchase. A complete online store.
EmCart gives you everything you need to run a professional online shop: a fast, good-looking storefront for your customers, and a friendly admin where you manage products, orders, payments, deliveries and marketing.
Unlike monthly store builders, you buy EmCart once and own your copy. It runs on your own hosting, under your own domain — so your store, your customer data and your sales stay yours.
It was built for South African businesses: local payment methods, local couriers, Rand pricing and the POPIA, ECTA and CPA basics are all part of it from day one.
What's included
166 features, ready on day one
No plugins to hunt for and no extras to pay for — it is all in the box.
Storefront & page builder
- Drag-and-drop page sections
- Draft, schedule and publish pages
- Themes, colours and any Google font
- Editable header, footer and menus
- Product card styles, from plain to boxed
- Looks great on phones
Products & stock
- Variants (size, colour…) with their own photos
- Bundles and build-your-own products
- Categories up to six levels deep
- Collections and related products
- “Call for price” products
- Stock tracking you can trust
- Printable price list (PDF or Excel)
Checkout & payments
- PayFast — card, Instant EFT and more
- Yoco, Ozow, Paystack and Peach Payments
- EFT with proof-of-payment upload
- PayPal for overseas buyers
- Gift vouchers and store credit
- Lay-by and Subscribe & save
- Printable tax invoices and packing slips
Shipping & couriers
- Live The Courier Guy and Bob Go rates and bookings
- PUDO lockers and Pargo pickup points
- Fastway, plus FedEx and DHL for international parcels
- Waybills and automatic tracking
- Flat-rate fallback and markups
Marketing & sales
- Discount codes and automatic deals
- Abandoned-cart reminder emails
- Loyalty points and refer-a-friend rewards
- Back-in-stock and price-drop alerts
- Verified-buyer, photo and Google reviews
- Google Shopping and Meta product feeds
- Social media icons, share buttons and pixels (with cookie consent)
More ways to sell
- Point of sale for your counter or market stall
- Wholesale prices and trade accounts
- Tiered customer prices (% or rand)
- Quotations customers accept online
- Prices in your visitor's currency, zero-rated exports
Run your business
- A dashboard you can arrange your way
- Phone app with new-order alerts
- AI assistants for shoppers and for you
- Order updates emailed to customers
- Sales reports, CSV export and Xero or Sage
- Staff accounts with roles and email invites
- Built-in step-by-step user manual
Security & POPIA
- Two-step login for staff
- New-device alerts and admin IP allow-list
- POPIA consent log, data export and erase
- Nightly encrypted backups
- Starter POPIA, ECTA and CPA legal pages
…and plenty more — see all 166 features.
What you can do with it
Everything a growing shop needs
Open your shop in a weekend
The setup wizard walks you through your store details, branding, payments and delivery — start clean, or with sample products to play with.
Get paid your way
Card and Instant EFT through PayFast, Yoco, Ozow, Paystack or Peach Payments, plain EFT with proof of payment, and PayPal for customers abroad.
Ship nationwide
Customers see live courier prices at checkout, or choose a PUDO locker or Pargo pickup point. You book the courier, print the waybill and track the parcel from the order page.
Win back lost sales
Abandoned-cart emails go out automatically, and discount codes or automatic deals give shoppers a reason to come back.
Grow with reviews, search & social
Verified buyers are asked for reviews, every product page is built to be found on Google, and share buttons and your social media icons bring shoppers in from Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and WhatsApp.
Sell to the world
Show prices in your visitor's currency, quote international shipping, and take PayPal — exports are zero-rated for VAT.
How it works
Selling in three steps
Buy & download
Pay with PayFast for an instant download, or by EFT — your download is ready as soon as we confirm it. It waits in your client area under Downloads.
Install on your hosting
Upload the files, run the installer and follow the setup wizard. Start with a clean store, or with sample products to try things out.
Start selling
Add your products, choose your look, switch on payments and couriers — then open your doors and take orders.
EmCart Support Services
Moving from another cart? We do it for you.
Add EmCart Support Services and we move your shop across, keep EmCart up to date and help whenever you need us — so you can get on with selling.
Store migration
Your products, options, photos and categories, moved from Shopify, WooCommerce, Zen Cart, OpenCart, PrestaShop, Magento and other popular carts.
Customers come too
Customer accounts move with your store. From WooCommerce, Zen Cart, OpenCart, PrestaShop, Magento and osCommerce they even keep their old passwords.
New versions included
New EmCart versions and security updates, so your store keeps getting better and stays safe.
Help when you need it
Questions about your store, settings or orders? A friendly South African team is an email away.
Good to know
Questions, answered
Is it really a once-off price?
Yes — R1,999 once-off. There are no monthly licence fees: you buy EmCart once and own your copy. You only pay for your own hosting and domain.
Can I try it before I buy?
Of course. Browse the live demo stores as a customer would, then open its admin demo (look-only) to see how you would run it. There are five demo stores, each in a different theme.
How do I get it?
Order online and pay with PayFast for an instant download, or by EFT — your download is ready as soon as we confirm the payment. You will find it in your Afriweb client area under Downloads, and we email you the link.
What hosting do I need?
Standard cPanel web hosting with PHP and MySQL. Afriweb hosting plans are a great fit, and your store runs on your own domain.
Do I need to know how to code?
No. The installer and setup wizard get you going, and the drag-and-drop page builder lets you change your pages, colours and fonts without touching code. There is a built-in user manual too.
Do I get updates?
Your purchase includes the version that is current when you buy. EmCart Support Services (R299 per month) add new EmCart versions, security updates and help with your store.
Can you move my store from another cart?
Yes, with EmCart Support Services. We bring your products, options, photos, categories and customer accounts across from Shopify, WooCommerce, Zen Cart, OpenCart, PrestaShop, Magento and other popular carts. Customers from WooCommerce, Zen Cart, OpenCart, PrestaShop, Magento and osCommerce even keep their old passwords. Shopify and Wix don't share passwords, so those customers get a "choose your password" email instead.
Is EmCart a good alternative to Shopify or WooCommerce?
For South African shops that want to own their store, yes: one payment instead of monthly fees, and payments, couriers and POPIA tools built in instead of paid apps or plugins, and the built-in importer brings your products, options, photos and categories across from Shopify, WooCommerce, OpenCart or Zen Cart. See our honest comparisons: EmCart vs Shopify and EmCart vs WooCommerce.
Which payment methods can my customers use?
Seven: PayFast (card, Instant EFT and more), Yoco, Ozow, Paystack and Peach Payments, plain EFT with a proof-of-payment upload, and PayPal for overseas buyers. Switch on the ones you want. EmCart takes no cut of your sales; you only pay your payment provider's normal fees.
Does it help my store comply with POPIA?
Yes. EmCart includes starter pages for POPIA, ECTA and the CPA (privacy, returns, delivery and warranty), a cookie notice, consent for marketing emails, and your business details where the law asks for them.
Is there a user manual?
Yes, built into the admin and searchable, in English, Afrikaans, isiXhosa, isiZulu and Sesotho.
New to selling online? Read how to start an online store in South Africa.
Ready to open your online store?
Get EmCart today — one payment, 166 features and no monthly licence fees. Not sure yet? Try the demos first.