• iStore now offers free same-day deliveries in Sandton, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town, Durban, Somerset West, Stellenbosch, Pietermaritzburg, Bloemfontein and George.
• Orders don’t need to meet a minimum amount to qualify for free same-day delivery.
• iStore carries a range of Apple, DJI and Anker products.

Local purveyors of Apple products, iStore, has announced that it now offers same-day delivery for free, seven-days a week.

Customers shopping on the store’s official website can now select same-day or scheduled deliveries. Unfortunately, this offer is only in Sandton, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town, Durban, Somerset West, Stellenbosch, Pietermaritzburg, Bloemfontein, and George.

“We have listened to feedback from our customers. We are very excited to provide the convenience of same day delivery in more regions across South Africa. We have entered a whole new era of e-commerce -centred around speed, choice and convenience. We are constantly innovating to provide new delivery options to make our customers’ lives easier,” iStore chief executive officer Chris Dodd said in a press release.

This same-day or scheduled delivery is free of charge so one could order a new iPhone and have it delivered before you sit down for your Sunday dinner. That is provided that same-day delivery is guaranteed and not simply best effort.

The best part of this offer is that you don’t need to spend a minimum amount to qualify for free same-day delivery.

“Our customers can also enjoy free Click & Collect when they order their favourite products online and collect from one of our 31+ iStores nationwide,” Dodd adds.

You can find an iStore near you here.

Of course, you can get more than just an iPhone delivered on the day you order it. While iStore’s bread and butter is Apple products, the retailer also sells DJI products, Sony cameras and lenses, power banks, battery backup solutions from Anker, and much more.

Same-day deliveries are a great value-add for retailers and we suspect more local businesses will lean into it. This is because Amazon is set to be easier to shop from locally this year and one of the platform’s best features – we’ve heard from those abroad – is Amazon Prime. Prime offers subscribers same-day delivery (on some items of course). This is a premium feature but if the likes of iStore and others are offering the same for free, Amazon may have to adapt to the local market.

Locally, Takealot also offers same-day delivery, in fact, it delivers within an hour through Takealot Now on the Mr D app.

It’s getting easier and easier to get tech delivered the day you order it and we’re big fans of this. Long may it continue.