The comparative global impact of Alibaba vs. Amazon

Alibaba Business School and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) brought 29 young entrepreneurs from 11 countries across Africa to the Alibaba campus in Hangzhou, China for the third eFounders Fellowship cohort. Chinese corporate soft power influence is production driven, not consumption focused. Alibaba, the e-commerce giant with digital payment tentacles, has […]

Market forces transforming the African retail landscape

Cosmetics giant L’Oreal’s partnership with pan African e-commerce platform Jumia signals a big shift in the way consumer packaged goods companies  address the challenge of reaching the emerging African consumer classes in a cost effective manner. A combination of market forces and on the ground realities points to this solution as a sweetspot for optimal […]

Quality of service at the last mile will make or break African e-commerce startups

With new e-commerce startups sprouting up everyday, competitive advantage in the urban African context will boil down to their quality of delivery and logistics managment. Given the lack of infrastructure such as home addresses, post codes with embedded information, or  as is the case in India – the last mile of delivery in the form […]

African E-Commerce: Successfully Leapfrogging The Metrics of Fail

Postal networks are critical elements of the e-commerce chain, a UN report said, including home postal delivery as an indicator in a new global index to measure countries’ readiness to carry out business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce. ~ source By these metrics, countries on the African continent such as Nigeria rank 101st on the global index, far […]

How e-commerce leadership is driving innovative business in Nigeria

While it’s still under construction, there’s an unusual mall coming up in Nigeria. Reports say its aim is to combine the virtual and real shopping experience – retail outlets and shopping alongside with a bonded warehouse and ecommerce facilities. Nigeria’s retail opportunity has been garnering international attention; its economy surpassed South Africa’s last year to […]