"We have a giant parcel, with many layers, which we will be putting on the back of a truck and taking to the road to play the childhood game of Pass the Parcel with our customers," says Kirby Gordon, marketing manager at kalahari.com. "Since 1998, the company has rung more than 6 million doorbells all around South Africa passing parcels over to connected shoppers; it only seems fitting that we celebrate our birthday by passing the parcel -in style."
The celebration kicked off yesterday at St Anne's Home in Woodstock just outside of Cape Town, where the company played Pass the Parcel with the kids there. St. Anne's Home is a NGO that offers its services to destitute, abused, rejected and disadvantaged women and their children from around South Africa. "We may be the pioneer of eCommerce in South Africa, but we are still 15 and young at heart. What better way to kick off our birthday than to celebrate it with cake, treats and a good old-fashioned game of Pass the Parcel with these special kids; this is a children's game after all."
Today, the kalahari.com Pass the Parcel truck, housing the giant present, will depart from Adderley Street Cape Town to do customer deliveries. "Of course, these won't be the normal deliveries. When customers get their orders delivered, they are going to get the opportunity to pull layers off the giant parcel to see if they have won something cool. The contents of the parcel will include a selection of the millions of home and living items, books, CDs, DVDs, games, toys and electronics that have become the hallmark of the site's retail offering.
True to its online nature, it will also take the celebrations to the digital streets. "We're taking our present onto Twitter so that we can play Pass the Parcel with the whole country. This Friday at noon, followers will be encouraged to tweet #kalahari15 to @kalaharicom and if their tweet is the first to appear after our music stops, then a layer will be taken off in their name by the Unwrapper."
The Twitter competition opens at noon today. "If you are not following us already, you should and ready your tweets for Friday afternoon," concludes Gordon.
