About the Insaka eCommerce Academy

Described by one student as “the solution to South Africa’s struggling online entrepreneur,” Insaka eCommerce Academy is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs start, grow and scale successful online businesses.

With over a decade of hands-on eCommerce experience, our mission is to share proven strategies, real-world lessons and expert insights so you can avoid costly mistakes and accelerate your journey to online success.

We’ve had the privilege of helping thousands of entrepreneurs achieve more sales, more freedom and more confidence in running their stores. Insaka is proud to be Africa’s only Shopify Education Partner - and one of only a select few worldwide - as well as the recipient of Shopify’s Top Education Partner award in 2021.

True to our commitment to support entrepreneurs at every stage, Insaka.co.za offers a wealth of free resources to help you get started and grow, no matter where you are in your eCommerce journey. For those ready to move faster, our high-value, step-by-step courses and mentorship programs are designed to fast-track your results and maximise your success.

Get Started With Our Free Resources Today!

About Warrick Kernes

Warrick Kernes began his eCommerce journey in 2008 after completing his Honours degree at the University of Johannesburg. Relocating to London, he joined a high-growth online retail business, where his contributions to their rapid expansion earned him the title of London’s Young Businessman of the Year in 2009.

In 2010, driven by his entrepreneurial spirit, Warrick returned to South Africa and founded Action Gear, an award-winning online store specialising in outdoor tech such as GoPro, DJI drones and Garmin devices. Under his leadership, the company grew from zero to over R20 million in annual sales.

While building Action Gear, Warrick often wished he had access to the mentors, community and support that could have helped him overcome the many challenges of selling online. At the time, such resources simply didn’t exist in South Africa. This gap ignited his passion to help other entrepreneurs succeed by giving them the tools and guidance he never had.

In 2017, after selling his shares in Action Gear, Warrick committed fully to this mission, founding the Insaka eCommerce Academy - a platform dedicated to helping South Africans start, launch and grow their own online stores. Since then, Insaka has empowered thousands of online sellers through expert-led training, mentorship and an active community. In recognition of this impact, Shopify selected Warrick in 2021 as their Top eCommerce Education Partner worldwide - a first for any South African entrepreneur.

Today, Insaka’s free community of over 40,000 members is the go-to resource for online entrepreneurs and its Annual eCommerce Virtual Summit - launched in 2020 - has become the largest event of its kind in Africa, attracting more than 10,000 participants each year.

As founder and CEO, Warrick continues to champion the growth of South Africa’s eCommerce industry, making world-class mentorship, training and community accessible to all who aspire to achieve success, freedom and financial independence through selling online.

Connect with Warrick on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram & Strava or listen to him speak at one of the upcoming SA eCommerce events. Additionally, stay informed with prominent news articles featuring Warrick Kernes covered by Bizcommunity.

Want to know more about Warrick?

Delve Deeper into Warrick's Story

Throughout schooling and university Warrick started and got involved with several start-up businesses of which most failed spectacularly and a few which gained traction but lacked in management execution to reach a reasonable level of success.

These failures and minor successes inspired Warrick to want to learn more and in enroll in the three year Bcom Entrepreneurial Management degree at University of Johannesburg starting in 2004 which he completed and followed up with a one year Honours post graduate degree in Strategic Management in 2007.

With certificates and theoretical knowledge in hand he felt that he would benefit greatly by gaining experience within a first-world business environment and this lead to Warrick and his (now) wife Camilla moving across to Europe in 2008.

Within days of arriving Warrick joined a fast growing eCommerce start-up. Working closely with the founders and playing an active role in the growth and massive expansion of the eCommerce business lead to the nomination and selection as the winner of London’s Young Businessman of 2009 in the HSBC Business Awards. This experience gave him the confidence to return home to South Africa to open his own business.

It was in 2010 that Warrick founded Action Gear. The business started originally as “Action Cameras” and was the first company in SA to start selling GoPro. The website was launched on the XCart eCommerce platform which, while good at the time compared to other options, had serious limitations so as the business and product range expanded the team sought better ways to represent the business online and subsequently moved to the Magento eComm platform. This back end replatform coincided with the rebranding to Action Gear in 2013. The company growth spiked again when Action Gear’s Sales Director won the contract to import, distribute and retail the DJI range of consumer drones. The growth put a strain on our Magento operations and so the company adapted again by upgrading to the Shopify platform in 2017 which better served the needs of the business and customers.

Through the years Action Gear and the team won several awards and Warrick was interviewed on multiple shows including 5FM, 947, 702 Talk Radio, KykNet, The Expresso Show, The Big Small Business Show on Summit TV and more. In 2012 Action Gear was selected as one of SA’s most entrepreneurial companies and awarded an entrepreneurial bursary from J.P Morgan for a two year program with Raizcorp worth R250k. A highlight award achieved was when Action Gear was selected above all of South Africa’s leading eCommerce retailers in the 2015 eCommerce Awards to win the “Best Customer Service” Award.

Warrick has gone on to talk at many of the South African eCommerce conferences and meet-ups around where he presents on topics ranging from “Starting an online store from scratch” to “Excelling at eCommerce service delivery”, “How to win Black Friday ” and more. These talks have also expanded to guest lecture presentations at the WITS Business School where he addresses the MBA class about the challenges of Start-ups and eCommerce.

Early in 2018 Warrick exited Action Gear to start a new business which would allow him to scale up his passion for sharing his experience in eCommerce and helping others to start and grow their online stores. And so, the Insaka eCommerce Academy was born.

It’s not all work and no play though as Warrick has taken on multiple ultra distance endurance races of which a few are listed below:

Comrades Marathon x3 (PB = 8:56)
SkyRun 100km Mountain Run (23:05)
947 and Cape Town Cycle Tours (Respective PBs = 2:32 & 3:06)
Burg & Bush, Sani2C (PB = 7th Overall in the 2018 Sani2c with partner Darren Ryan) & Wines2Whales (PB = 1st place mixed team with Nicolette Griffioen in the 2015 Pinotage race)
Podium finishes at 2x Full Moon Adventure Races
Xterra, IronMan 70.3 & Full IronMan (PB = 11:28)
in 2016 Warrick and his wife Camilla cycled 4,650km from Joburg2Kili on single speed Qhubeka Buffalo bicycle and then summitted Mount Kilimanjaro. In doing so they raised R157,000 for the Qhubeka charity.

Connect with Warrick on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram & Strava

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Insaka recognized as Africa's only Official Education Partner

After rigorous assessments of Insaka's flagship program "Your Online Store", the team at Shopify head quarters gave the official approval for The Insaka eCommerce Academy as their 1st African Education Partner (one of only 18 partners worldwide)

Check out what some of our students have to say...

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