E-commerce markets across Africa are already awash with special deals and announcements of tech upgrades to facilitate the much-anticipated digital shopping frenzy.

This year's busiest online shopping day of the year will commence on Friday 24 November and the level of expectation is high.

Black Friday originates in the US and marks the day after Thanksgiving when shoppers descend on stores to take advantage of the season's biggest holiday bargains.

African online mall Jumia says the continent is experiencing an impressive uptake.

The company, which facilitates a system of online commerce marketplaces and classifieds websites and applications, says during last year's Black Friday, it saw traffic to its website reach +200%, with over 80% increase in bookings on its travel platform.

Sam Chappatte, Managing Director of Jumia Kenya said the number of SMEs leveraging the platform grew by 45% in 2016.

Commenting on KPMG's 2017 Global Online Consumer Report, Robyn Cooke, who heads the e-commerce division for South Africa-based independent retail group TFG, said, "The average contribution of online sales for businesses in Africa is just around one percent today."

Cooke added that South Africa still in an earlier stage of e-commerce adoption: "It's a young and nascent market, but strategically very important."

In June 2016 Vuyo Mpako, Head of Digital Channels and e-commerce at Standard Bank, echoed a similar sentiment and said,, "E-commerce may be taking the world by storm, but South Africans remain wary of shopping online, with only three million making regular use of electronic shopping trollies to meet their daily requirements."

Mpako cited e limited access to the internet and the cost of broadband as two critical challenges. "Although uncapped access to fibre networks is increasing in homes across the country, the cost - usually more than R600 a month - restricts access to those in higher-income brackets."

According to Statista.com, revenue in South Africa's e-commerce market is forecast to reach US$2,7billion in 2017. Revenue is expected to show an annual growth rate (CAGR 2017-2022) of 14.2 % resulting in a market volume of US$5,239m in 2022. User penetration is at 32.6 % in 2017 and is expected to hit 43.8% in 2022.

The average revenue per user (ARPU) currently amounts to US$146.49.