Page 33 - Abyssinia Business Network ABN August 2019

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compared to other developed the consumers come from? Sellers items. These local producers enjoy
continents such as Europe, Asia, who until 2012 were primarily unprecedented exposure and access to
South & North America when it selling offline and reaching very millions of customers across Africa.
comes to online commerce. For few consumers within their This therefore makes for a strong
instance, online retail penetration geographical proximity. Same case because 75% of most African
accounts for less than 1% of all the consumers who grew up going economies derive their revenue from
transactions in Africa, compared to physical stores to make a micro, small and medium enterprises.
to 12% in the US and 20% in purchase, wasting time and effort, It thus means that the more exposure
China. There is a ratio of 1 shop and in some cases money. These these local businesses enjoy on the
to 67,000 Africans versus 1 shop same traditional offline shoppers Jumia platform, the more revenue will
to 1,000 Americans. The shift and sellers embraced a convenient be generated for the countries.
from physical stores to online method of shopping, started to
stores is happening gradually as spend money and time saved from As a result of the precedence set by
a result of ecommerce platforms walking a distance to physical the pan African ecommerce platform
becoming increasingly relevant shops on other priorities, whereas Jumia, investment opportunities started
to both the consumers and sellers the sellers started reaching more knocking on the continent. Established
in Africa. Let’s use Jumia, a Pan buyers, even those outside of their ecommerce platforms in other regions,
African e-commerce platform as a geographical reach. such as Amazon, started eyeing the
yardstick to illustrate this gradual many opportunities to establish its
but steady growth. Where are the products they presence in Africa. For instance, Souq,
sell sourced from? The sellers a Middle East player was bought
On the Jumia platform as at and consumers are not the only by Amazon in 2017 to establish a
March 31st 2019, there were beneficiaries of e-commerce. The presence in Egypt; Naspers owns
over 81,000 active sellers across economy of the various countries Takealot in South Africa, competing
Africa selling over 30 million with ecommerce presence benefits with Jumia’s fashion retail platform,
products to about 4.3 million the most through the promotion of Zando. Others are local competitors
active customers, according to locally made products i.e. Made in such as Mall for Africa, Afrimarket in
the company’s prospectus on the Nigeria. Majority of the sellers on West Africa, and KiliMall in Kenya.
New York Stock Exchange. Who the Jumia marketplace sell locally From time immemorial, Nigerians,
are these sellers, and where did made products, especially fashion and maybe some Africans, prefer to

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