Why retail systems integration is becoming as critical as digital storefronts for e-commerce growth in Kenya

Digital commerce is often discussed in terms of apps, online storefronts and digital payments. But retail systems integration is becoming just as important to businesses trying to turn online demand into completed orders, accurate stock records and reliable customer experiences.

That was one of the practical lessons from Glovo Kenya’s Future of Commerce Summit, where Jaza Supermarket, Kuku Foods and Visa East Africa described different ways technology is changing retail operations. Their experiences pointed to a shared challenge: adding a digital channel is only part of the job. Businesses also need the systems behind the customer interface to communicate with one another.

For Jaza, that means connecting supermarket orders placed through Glovo to its own operations. For Kuku Foods, it involves linking restaurant processes, enterprise resource planning and live business data. For Visa, it means building payment infrastructure that can support transactions across different channels, including emerging AI-assisted shopping experiences.

Connecting the order to the business

Jaza Supermarket founder Willy Kimani described how the retailer uses WhatsApp to receive customer orders and M-PESA prompts to support payment. The supermarket also has a direct API integration with Glovo, designed to reduce missed orders and cancellations.

The integration matters because a digital order is not complete when a customer presses send. The retailer still needs to receive the request, confirm the items, process payment where applicable, prepare the order and coordinate fulfilment. If information fails to move between systems, a seemingly simple transaction can create extra work for staff or leave the customer waiting.

An application programming interface, or API, allows separate software systems to exchange information according to defined rules. In a retail setting, that can reduce the need for staff to copy orders manually from one platform into another.

The value is operational as much as technical. A retailer can reach customers through more channels, but those channels become difficult to manage if they create disconnected workflows. Integrating order intake with existing processes can help businesses handle additional demand without multiplying the manual work required for every sale.

The summit discussion did not suggest that integration eliminates every problem. Product availability, substitutions, delivery coordination and payment issues still need to be managed. The point is that connected systems give businesses a better foundation for handling those problems.

Kuku Foods is linking restaurant operations to live data

Kuku Foods, which operates KFC in Kenya, offered a different view of the same challenge. Jacques Theunissen discussed the company’s investments in forecasting, inventory management, operating routines and enterprise resource planning systems.

Enterprise resource planning software brings information and processes from different parts of a business into a more connected operating environment. For a restaurant group, that can include stock, purchasing, sales and other operational information. The value depends on how well the systems are implemented and how consistently teams use them.

Theunissen described the return on technology as coming from systems working together and providing access to live data, rather than from buying individual tools in isolation. He also discussed using Microsoft Copilot to query information held in the company’s ERP environment.

That distinction is important. An AI assistant may make business information easier to retrieve, but its usefulness depends on the quality, structure and accessibility of the underlying data. If inventory records are outdated or operational systems are poorly connected, a conversational interface will not resolve those weaknesses by itself.

The discussion also covered self-service kiosks, which Theunissen said could increase average basket values by between 10% and 30%. He described the kiosks as offering a quick payback, making them a practical example of technology tied to a specific commercial outcome.

A kiosk changes how customers place orders, but the wider business still needs to process those orders accurately. Menu configuration, kitchen workflows, stock availability and reporting must remain aligned. The technology’s value therefore extends beyond the screen customers interact with.

Payments need to work across the customer journey

Visa East Africa’s Anne Kinuthia-Otieno approached the issue from the payments side. The company’s initiatives discussed at the summit included Visa Accept, which enables app-based payment acceptance for small businesses, and Visa Pay, which was presented as supporting virtual cards, digital onboarding and cross-border payments.

These products address different points in the digital commerce process, but they reflect a common requirement: businesses need payment options that fit the channels through which customers discover products, place orders and complete purchases.

Payment infrastructure also affects what happens after a transaction. Digital records can provide evidence of a business’s sales activity, potentially helping financial institutions assess its operations when considering access to credit. Such records do not guarantee lending, but they can make commercial activity easier to document than transactions that leave little usable information behind.

The growing use of AI-assisted shopping adds another layer. When software helps a customer find a product or initiate a purchase, the payment process must still establish how the transaction is authorised and how payment credentials are protected. That requires coordination between the shopping interface, merchant systems and payment infrastructure.

The more channels a business supports, the more important those connections become. An online order, a kiosk transaction and a purchase initiated through an AI assistant may begin in different places, but each must ultimately connect to reliable fulfilment, accounting and payment processes.

Integration is an operating decision, not just an IT project

The examples from Jaza, Kuku Foods and Visa show why retailers should assess technology in terms of the work it helps them complete. A new ordering channel may attract customers, but it can also create operational friction if it sits apart from inventory, payments and fulfilment.

For smaller retailers, the priority may be connecting an existing messaging channel to order management and delivery. For a restaurant group, it may involve making stock, sales and forecasting data more useful across its operations. For payment providers, the task is to support secure transactions across a growing variety of interfaces.

These are different technical problems, but they share a business objective: reduce the distance between a customer’s decision to buy and the business’s ability to complete the sale.

Kenya’s digital commerce market already includes mobile apps, messaging platforms, mobile money and physical retail. Businesses do not necessarily need to replace every existing system or force customers into a single channel. They need to make the systems they choose work together.

The competitive advantage may therefore come less from the number of digital tools a retailer adopts than from how reliably those tools connect the customer to the rest of the business.

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