The retail sector has emerged as a leader in the South African economy. It is a main contributor to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). E-commerce specifically online retail in this emerging economy has grown tremendously over the past years.  Even though online retail sales lag the conventional retail sales, it poses a great growth potential.  For online retail to be successful, e-commerce websites that are responsive to the users needs is a vital prerequisite. Designing such a website in South Africa (SA) is a challenge since the population varies greatly with regard to cultural background.  Studies focusing on usability issues in South African websites focused on clicks-only retailers. This paper is unique because it focuses on the usability issues of Click-and-Mortar retail e-commerce websites and is contextualized to SA users.  The paper reports on the results of the user evaluations conducted on three SA retail sites and how these compare or can be benchmarked for usability purposes against an international retail site. The paper furthermore, reports on the current status of e-commerce and online retail in South Africa.  Finally, it concludes with some provisional usability issues identified during the user evaluations as well as some recommendations for improvement of SA websites.