Global online payments company PayPal's regional director for Israel and Africa Efi Dahan says Africa and South Africa in particular represents the fastest growing markets in the ecommerce space.

Dahan was presenting at the mobile, web and emerging tech event Tech4Africa, now in its second and final day in Johannesburg.

PayPal urged attendees to prepare for the new reality.

"...the smartphone penetration will make the move faster than it used to be in other parts of the world. When you do online shopping via mobile on average you spend much more because you have your mobile all day and you can use it all the time," Dahan said.

According to PayPal, over a million accounts have been opened so far in South Africa alone and that the popularity of cross border purchases is on the rise around the continent due to the convenience and affordability of shopping online.

Dahan noted poor logistics and security as the main barriers to ecommerce and chief amongst concerns raised by online shoppers during the IPSOS & PayPal Research conducted in South Africa last year.

The research, he said, also shows that 50% of online shoppers in South Africa who own a smartphone have used it to shop online.

Dahan told ITWeb Africa that PayPal's decision to introduce refunded returns in South Africa at no cost to consumers was spurred by the realisation that 30% of consumers were willing to buy more as a result of the policy.

"We cover up to thirty dollars per return. you can return by express or through the post office. Everything is based on the service that the merchant offers although we cover the cost up to the particular balance a few times per year."

According to its research PayPal predicts that cross-border e commerce would reach $307bn by 2018 globally, along with growth in intra-africa trade.

Support for startups

Dahan vowed that PayPal would support African startups as much as possible through organised hackathons and offering the opportunity to use its service as a payment option. This would provide them with access to the 160 million active PayPal accounts worldwide.

"We work very hard with startups and developers on the technical and product side to help them implement the best payment model....basically PayPal is a technology company that is doing business in the financial industry like a bank but we used to be a startup."

Tech4Africa founder Gareth Knight said, "I think there are a couple of clear trends, e-commerce is a big trend. People are realising that innovation is going to come from startups it is not going to come from big corporates and I think the other things is that there is a journey involved and that you can talk a lot about entrepreneurship, startups and innovation but it is actually quite hard and there are very few guys that do it well."

Knight could not say how many of the five hundred and fifty people who registered arrived for the first day, but estimated that it could be as many as a four hundred.

He also vouched for Africa-centred ICT gatherings like Tech4Africa.

"I went to a talk about finding a cause or having a cause and that resonated with me because I think we have a very deep cause and I think it's a lot of affirmation that people can be inspiring, talks can be inspiring, content can be inspiring but you have to be here to enjoy it."

Other speakers at the event spent time offering advice on how to best grow new startups and disrupt the current ICT landscape including olympian Steve Evans who quoted from PayPal founder Peter Thiel's latest book Zero to One as he delivered his keynote .

"Startups operate on the principle that you need to work with other people to get stuff done but you also need to stay small enough so that you actually can," said Evans.