E-commerce has been on the rise in Uganda in the recent years and this is evidenced by many companies coming on the market such as Jumia, SafeBoda, Uber and so many others. This is evidence that people use technology to get convenience. The Rotaract club of Kampala South recently hosted Mr. Ron Kawamara the CEO of Jumia Uganda and has been working with the company since inception to talk about the changing face of E-commerce in the recent years.
In Uganda and most African countries, internet or e-commerce makes up less than 1% of the economy, which means 99% of trade is still happening offline. But the opportunity is here and companies are making money, customers are buying, businesses are selling.
From establishment, Jumia has since grown in impact and in the past 7 years, the company has focused on products such as the Market place, where sellers can plug in and get customers and these include the Jumia mall which has over 6 million products and customers can get deliveries at their homes, offices or at pick up points throughout the whole country. With over 1800 pick-up points spread out in the country, clients are able to receive products at their convenience. Jumia has also partnered with Total to act as pick up points within the country and hence made delivery easier for clients.
On demand service which is commonly known to people as Jumia food with average delivery time of 6 minutes. This is basically food delivery mostly within Kampala restaurants and supermarkets.
Jumia pay, allows consumers to pay using online platforms such as Visa, MasterCard, mobile money and others. Jumia has also given an opportunity to vendors to receive payments but also access credit through the platform. Vendors can borrow money from partners of up to $300,000 to invest in business and scale up.
Jumia has also partnered with logistical companies across the country which deliver and move products. This service is open to so many companies besides vendors on the platform.
With the existence of the covid-19 pandemic, e-commerce is relevant more than ever in this country.
Mr. Kawamara says that while starting the business as Hello food a few years back, we thought we would just replicate a system I had seen in the USA. But this was not the case because of the internet usage in Uganda and we had to get back to the drawing board and think of better ways to reach the clients. He had to become an educator to the business owners and teach them about marketing, packaging and so many things which could then make business easier for both the clients and the vendors.
The technological space does not have a lot of help so most technology entrepreneurs have to solve so many problems such as logistical networking, mapping because most people do not have addresses for easy navigation, educating customers about e-commerce.
Because of the pandemic, Jumia was able to change the business model to support fresh food markets that now support over 2000 vendors.
We have been growing because of our best prices in the market. We offer convenience by delivering products to customers. We guarantee our products – the quality is good and we deal in genuine products. We also allow customers to pay after receiving the product and allow them to return the product in seven days in case they are not comfortable with it.