Nigeria’s expanding e-commerce industry

 Nigeria’s expanding e-commerce industry

According to a 2020 report by IFC and Google, Africa's digital economy could be worth $180 billion by 2025. CNN’s Connecting Africa looks at the initiatives and strategies e-commerce companies are taking to connect African consumers with online products and learns what needs to be done to increase online access, seamlessly deliver purchased goods, and expand product offerings across the continent.

CNN’s Eleni Giokos recently visited Jumia’s warehouse in Lagos to explore its streamlined system and discuss how investing in e-commerce benefits the local community. Richmond Carlos Out, the Chief Supply Chain Officer for Jumia, says, “We are doing close to 45% more than what we are doing six months ago. Previously we used to deliver within two days within Lagos. Now we deliver within one day within Lagos.”

This expansion is just the beginning as Jumia looks for new ways to grow Africa’s e-commerce ecosystem. Jumia’s group supple chain officer, Lucia Munoz De Blas, explains, “e-commerce is giving more visibility to sellers, is helping the customers across the country to be able to have all the goods that they need.”

Giokos speaks with Francis Dufay, the CEO of Jumia who explains the importance of e-commerce on Africa’s growth, “What's happening on the continent is that consumer demand is growing extremely fast at the pace of population growth. We're serving consumers who are extremely price conscious and e-commerce can really help to fix lots of gaps that we see across the continent. It can enable customers to access cheaper goods, better quality, more assortment, more choice.”

He continues, “Jumia is actually presently trading across 11 markets across the continent. we're definitely the one e-commerce platform across the continent that has been designed, defined and built for African vendors and African consumers.”

Dufay ends with a look into Jumia’s future, “It's a huge growth runway for us. We need to serve this market at scale. We need million more customers and scale will also make Jumia as a company profitable. I mean, breakeven is going to come for us for more revenues. So definitely now it's a growth story.”

This interview was featured in a recent episode of Connecting Africa on CNN International.