# Bob

> Bob (Bob Group) is a South African ecommerce and fintech company that grew out of bidorbuy, the R1 auction site launched in 1999. Today it runs a single connected stack - the Bob Shop marketplace, the Bob Pay payment gateway, the Bob Go courier network and the Bob Box smart-locker grid - so a merchant can list a product, take payment, ship it and get it collected without leaving one login. It handles more than a million transactions a month and is openly chasing African unicorn status.

- **Founded:** 1999
- **Headquarters:** Johannesburg, South Africa
- **Founders:** Andy Higgins (Founder (bidorbuy) & Managing Director, Bob Group)
- **Team size:** About 120 employees
- **Products:** Bob Shop, Bob Pay, Bob Go, Bob Box, Ship Logic
- **Notable:** Launched South Africa's first online R1, no-reserve auction marketplace in 1999, Survived the dotcom crash and became the dominant online marketplace in South Africa, Merged bidorbuy and uAfrica to form Bob Group in August 2022

## Products & services

- **Bob Shop** — South Africa's original online marketplace (formerly bidorbuy), offering fixed-price and auction listings across 30+ categories with 3 million+ items - roughly 80% brand-new goods.
- **Bob Pay** — A built-in payment gateway offering multiple secure methods (EFT, card, and PayShap real-time payments), plus plugins for Shopify and WooCommerce.
- **Bob Go** — A courier aggregation and shipping platform (formerly uAfrica) that compares 12+ delivery partners, generates waybills, and manages pickups and tracking.
- **Bob Box** — A nationwide network of 250+ smart parcel lockers for 24/7 send and collect, engineered to remain usable during load-shedding.
- **Ship Logic** — A Software-as-a-Service logistics platform within the group's portfolio supporting courier and delivery operations.

## Achievements

- Launched South Africa's first online R1, no-reserve auction marketplace in 1999
- Survived the dotcom crash and became the dominant online marketplace in South Africa
- Merged bidorbuy and uAfrica to form Bob Group in August 2022
- Grew to 1 million+ transactions per month and 3 million+ listed items
- Deployed 250+ smart parcel lockers nationwide
- Among South Africa's first payment providers to integrate PayShap real-time payments

## Latest updates

- **2025-08** — Bob Shop marked 26 years of operation, highlighting AI-driven listing and search tools and its move to a unified Bob ecosystem.
- **2025-01** — Bob Pay launched a PayShap real-time payments (RTP) feature, letting merchants pull instant payments from customers' bank accounts via phone or account number.
- **2023-03** — uAfrica was rebranded as Bob Go and bidorbuy as Bob Shop, completing the shift to the unified Bob brand.

## Links

- Website: https://www.bob.co.za
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bobcoza
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/bobcoza
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@bobgroupcoza
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bobcoza
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bobcoza
- TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@bobcoza_

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/bob
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-08-14