Jumia wants to cross 10 million products offering on its e-commerce platform in 2019, with new brands exclusive on the platform. The e-commerce leader also plans to grow its market place and vendors on the Jumia platform. This is according to Jumia MD Sam Chappatte.
Sam was speaking during an interview with TechTrendsKE to share the company’s plans for 2019.
2018 ended with a bang on the back of the company’s biggest Black Friday event. During the Black Friday, the MD says there were 4 million products live on the website compared to 500 thousand products they had the previous year.
‘’This was the biggest Black Friday event to date in terms of sales volumes and new customers. On each day of the event, there were big sellers and this drove more customers to our website ‘’ he said
He noted that the Jumia app during the Black Friday was a big push for consumers to the app with lots of consumers using the app.
‘’This is a trend we’re going to keep seeing moving forward, more and more customers using the app. The app is more convenient and easy to use and it’s becoming one of the biggest part of our Business’’ he said.
The Jumia Black Friday 2018 sales event was launched in November last year. The one-month event took place from 2nd to 30th November under the tagline Every Friday is Black Friday this November!
Growing vendors on Jumia
The supply chain in the country is also growing and according to Sam, more vendors are now signing up on the Jumia platform. He says hundreds of SMEs are signing up on Jumia.
At the end of 2018, Jumia had 10,000 Vendors on the platform and it expects this number to substantially grow in 2018 as SMEs try to digitize their services.
Having more vendors creates competition which drives down prices. ‘’Growing the number of vendors on our platform is a key focus for us to make customers save money’’
During the launch of the 2018 Black Friday, the company announced that it wants to significantly grow its vendor base from the current 10,000 to 15,000 by 2019.
The e-commerce industry is share is doubling every year and there’s a lot to look forward to in 2019. Customer expectation is also increasing and in 2019 Jumia says it will be working on meeting these demands.
The company also plans to start educating customers and run campaigns that educate customers about e-commerce. It also plans to start training its vendors to help them develop their own reputation.
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Featured Image: Jumia MD, Sam Chappatte, PS, State Department of Trade, Dr. Chris Kiptoo (Ministry of Industrialization, Trade & Cooperatives) and Florence Kimata – SMEs Advisor – (Ministry of Industrialization, Trade & Cooperatives) addressing the media during the Jumia Black Friday 2018 launch event.
