South Africans now have a free personal guide to the stock market where they will be supported to learn, trade and invest. Stockshop.co.za, the first startup of its kind, is an education, information and product platform offering valuable content and product access for beginners as well as for more sophisticated investors.
Founder and CEO, Annabel Dallamore learnt at her previous job at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange where she ran the equity options market, that most people think of the stock market as opaque, scary and complicated and that it is only accessible to a select few. She was inundated with queries about the stock market from people who wanted to invest their money, but didn’t know how to begin or who to turn to for advice. She also discovered that that there are very few South Africans who invest directly on the JSE. As a result, Stock Shop was born to help grow retail participation in the South African stock market.
She explains, “At Stock Shop we believe that the South African market should be accessible to everyone. We want to help spread the benefits of investing and saving in South Africa. We have to change from a credit culture to a savings and investment culture. If you want to invest your money responsibly, Stock Shop can help educate and inform you about the stock market as well as present the products and services available. It can help you learn more so you make well-informed decisions.”
Stockshop.co.za curates all the relevant education tools (news, research, events, webinars, podcasts etc.) as well as products and services (online share trading platforms, personal brokers, unit trusts, ETFs, ETNs, asset managers, wealth managers) and trading tools (trading software, calculators, analysis tools etc.) in one easy-to-use platform. The Stock Shop facilitates the interaction between retail investors and the product and service providers.
It also offers Stock Shop Academy, an online learning platform. Users can upskill themselves in their own time, at their own pace, very cost-effectively as most of the wide variety of courses are free.
The website also offers Stock Shop Daily News, a news service which offers new-to-the-market readers updates on financial news, tips and demystifies important financial concepts.
This South African startup generates revenue via lead generation for product and service providers as well as taking a portion of monthly trading fees.