There are many business concepts you can develop for an online business. The most popular
in Africa so far seem to be online shopping of electronics, clothes, household goods, and
baby care, followed by car auction sites. But this doesn’t mean you have to follow that young
trend; you can be a pioneer for a new trend, the scope and space is there!
As the internet spreads across Africa, the culture of buying goods and services
online is spreading with it. Although the concept of eCommerce and online
shopping is relatively new to Africa, more people on the continent are adopting
it, especially because of the convenience and price advantages it provides.
Many of the online marketplaces that currently operate on the continent offer a
wide range of products; some of those most in demand are food items, gadgets
and devices (such as mobile phones), household appliances, and so on. Some of
the successful online marketplaces in Africa include:
Konga and Jumia , two of Nigeria’s most successful ecommerce giants.
To date, these two companies have raised $63.5 million and $61 million
respectively from global investors. Offering a wide range of fast-moving
consumer products, these marketplaces operate out of the busy city of
Lagos and deliver orders to customers across a wide region of the
country.
You need to have online or mobile payment options present in those countries – and
many countries simply do not have these systems available yet. But a lot is happening in
this regard and it will change soon! MasterCard is one of the leading credit cards in
Africa following their Africa expansion.
In (summer 2014) MasterCard operates in 48 out of 54 African countries. So make sure your online
business is compatible with MasterCard, among other payment systems.
Kehinde, a 30-year-old Harvard MBA graduate, founded Kasuwa, a Nigerian
online retailer in 2012 from scratch. Within days of its founding, Kasuwa
received seed funding from a German online startup incubator and the
company’s name was changed to Jumia.
It has already a multi-million dollar turnover and has become Nigeria’s
largest online retailer. A major challenge for the company was the logistics
of running a growing company and transporting the goods to the customers.
For reasons that are not entirely clear, Tunde Kehinde recently stepped down
as CEO of Jumia Nigeria. He resigned in January 2014 to start a logistics
company.