If you’re anything like us here at htxt.africa, you’re probably looking at your Google contacts book with utter dismay right now as you realise just how many presents you need to buy before the office closes for the festive season in three weeks’ time. And you’re probably also starting up a browser window to see how you can save some cash on the internet.

Let us stop you there, because today is big news day for online shoppers. Elsewhere in the world, it’s dubbed ‘Black Friday’, the day after the US Thanksgiving holiday when the Christmas shopping period kicks off in earnest. While that particular name may not catch on over here, the practice of buying stuff online for less money than you’d pay in store certainly has. And to help you navigate to the very best bargains available anywhere in the virtual world, we’ve gone ahead and launched our very own deals site.

Over at deals.htxt you’ll find an exceptional array of carefully sourced discounts, available to you at the mere click of a mouse. And, as bargain hunters yourselves, you’ll be able to share deals you’ve found with the rest of the community, and maybe even see some of those filter up to the front page.

In the spirit of full disclosure, for many of the deals we advertise, we will receive a small kickback via affiliate schemes. These are sourced completely independently and will have no effect on the editorial side of htxt.africa – and we’ll never prioritise a discount for which we do receive a commission over an equally good or better one. The reader will always come first.

On the other hand, that means there’s a good chance that something you buy via a click on deals.htxt is supporting us in our mission to make the very best tech and geek site in South Africa. That’s what they call a win-win.

Want more details? The press release we put out this morning is copied below.  To stay up to date with today’s top deals, you can follow our new sister site through this Twitter address.

//note – the release below has been updated to add amended sources for shopping predictions in SA.

PRESS RELEASE

New discounts and deals portal for online shoppers launches in time for festive bargains

Johannesburg – Friday 29th November 2013 Hypertext Media has launched deals.htxt, a new South African site for online shoppers that will showcase the best special offers and discounts available on the internet each day. The launch has been timed to coincide with Black Friday*, unofficially the biggest discounted shopping day of the year in the United States, and a growing phenomenon now available to South Africans via online shopping.

On launch day, deals.htxt has negotiated a series of 10 special deals that will each be available for just one hour. Deals include a massive 65% discount off a Hexbright programmable flashlight, and more than R550 off a Pebble Smartwatch – but shoppers will have to keep on checking the site during the day, to take advantage.

The deals site is being launched off the back of htxt.africa, Hypertext’s successful tech news site which began publishing daily news, features and reviews six months ago.

“It’s no secret that the internet has changed the way people all over the world research, compare and purchase everything, from essential pieces of technology to everyday items needed to run their households,” says Hypertext founder, Brett Haggard. “And during the festive season in 2012, many large retailers experienced year-on-year growth of between 30-90%, with even bigger numbers expected for 2013 as more people are online. A report commissioned by Google, for example, is predicting at least 25% growth in online sales for the whole year**.”

According to the MasterCard Online Shopping Survey, 54% of South Africans who have access to the Internet use it for shopping, and 91% of those who do so, were satisfied with their experience. Three quarters of those shoppers said that they found the ease and convenience of online shopping appealing.

“Looking at the great response we’ve had to our weekly ‘Thrifty Thursday’ posts published to htxt.africa, we believe that the South African online community will welcome a site where they can find great specials and discounts on a huge variety of products and services, in one place,” he says.

At launch, deals.htxt will feature a minimum of ten hot deals each day, with the number of deals featured on the site set to grow as demand increases. Regular visitors to the site will also be encouraged to share deals that they find elsewhere, growing the reach of the community.

“It is important to note that deals.htxt is a connection to great deals, referring shoppers to the retailers offering them. It is over to those shopping outlets to fulfil orders according to the terms and conditions published on their sites,” Haggard says. “For the near term, many of the deals we feature on the site may well be from international players, although we are on the lookout for local suppliers who want to offer special deals too. We will ensure however, that all of these deals on the site have been verified as available to South African shoppers at the time of listing them on the site.”

* Black Friday is the last Friday in November, and is regarded as the start of the Christmas shopping season in the United States, with the name derived from the belief that on this day retailers’ balance sheets for the year move into annual profit.

In recent years, ‘Black Friday’ and ‘Cyber Monday’ (the first Monday that follows on from Black Friday) have marked a weekend of fierce discounting and competition among international retailers as they seek to win lucrative business in the festive period.

**From the Internet Matters report produced by World Wide Worx on behalf of Google South Africa.

ENDS