Welcome to Cameras.co.za – We are aiming to be South Africas best Online Camera Retailer. My name is Bradley Moore and I am the driving force behind Cameras.co.za – In an affort to be as transparent as possible I would like to invite you to witness the building of the Cameras.co.za Ecommerce Business.

History

This blog post will give you a little history of my background on the web and how we have arrived at this point in time to launch an ecommerce store.

My Life on the web started in 1996 when my family was lucky enough to become Intekom’s (TELKOM) subscriber number 2134. I was immediately captivated by the vast amounts of information out there and the ability to connect to other individuals and businesses on a 24/7 basis.

In this year, I was fortunate enough to attend a School Exchange program. My school, Camps Bay High School, was to spend some time in the USA – our exchange school was The Travelling School of Santa Cruz, in California (Very close to Palo Alto, San Jose and Silicon Valley) I did not realise it at the time, but many people residing and working in this area were involved or soon to be involved in Ecommerce Companies some way or another.

Whilst on this trip I was keen on learning more about the internet and the opportunities presented by it; I found a book shop and bought 5 books about Internet Security, HTML, How to make a Website with a CDROM included with software of the same name and 2 others I cannot remember the names of.

I also happened to be on the receiving end of a pamphlet encouraging me to advertise on the Santa Cruz website, whilst walking downtown in SC. The domain name for this Santa Cruz website was of the geocities type and had many subfolders before arriving at the Santa Cruz page. Like this: http://www.geocities.com/south-beach/2580/jacks-garage/santa-cruz.html

I remember thinking, surely you should have SantaCruz.Com if you want people to advertise on a Santa Cruz website?

On my return to South Africa I thought that I would buy a property and charge rental to all the tenants – what this really meant was – I would purchase a domain name (CapeTown.Com) and charge for advertising.

When I eventually got round to saving enough money and finding someone at intekom (Travis Pauley) to help me with the domain registration – I found out that CapeTown.Com had already been registered. I then tried Clifton.Com and Clifton.co.za as these were the next best well known areas of Cape Town and close to home to find advertisers – seeing as though I had only a Scooter at the time.

Now, whilst Clifton was more well-known than Camps Bay (its neighbour) Clifton did not have any shops, Camps Bay on the other hand Darren had many restaurants and shops and businesses. I checked the availability of the domains CampsBay.Com and CampsBay.co.za and made an executive decision – Camps Bay would be chosen over Clifton for my new venture.

The year was 1997 and I have been involved in the running this business ever since. During this time period 1997 until now (October 2011)  I have realised the importance of domain names – especially generic ones. Hence our purchase of Cameras.co.za in 2007.

During this time we have tested systems such as Magento, OpenCart, VirtueMart and our own scripts. We have also watched the likes of Kalahari.Net grow from strength to strength and TheShoppingMatrix.co.za close its doors, Take2.co.za has had a Brand Change to TakeaLot.Com and Loot.co.za has moved in to Electronics, these were the original etailers of the day and they are still going strong.

We believe that a niche Camera and Photographic Store, with a great domain name, excellent product and exceedingly better service than other etailers will be able to become one of the long standing etailers of our Country – AND, We would like YOU to join us on the ride.