E-commerce in Africa overview

Africa’s e-commerce sector is expected to double in value, grow to be worth $75 billion by 2025 and create a massive 3 million jobs. The Covid 19 pandemic has changed the way most businesses are structured as lockdowns necessitated a move to digital solutions for most businesses. As most people went online to purchase, the pandemic accelerated the growth of the eCommerce sector globally as well as on the continent. 

Although the sector is growing, currently online purchases are significantly lower compared to other regions. However, African countries have systems in place that made the growth of eCommerce easier i.e. increasing internet connectivity and digital payments. 

Cashless transactions that are the backbone of the eCommerce sector have been prevalent in Africa’s financial system for the longest time. Kenya and Uganda were the first countries to adopt mobile payments in the early 2000s used initially for sending money have played a supporting role in the ease of sending money electronically. Today there are, 548 million registered and 159 million active accounts across 157 providers on the continent. 

There is great potential for e-commerce in Africa to serve a growing population of Africa’s growing consumer class. However, there are lingering structural challenges that make it difficult for businesses to fully tap into the potential of eCommerce on the continent.

How bad addresses affect the e-commerce 

National addressing systems in many countries are not well structured which has led to significant challenges in e-commerce logistics. Many people have to describe their location using addressing. The biggest players in the sector still use using landmarks to get their directed by their customers. 

When customers do not have that are simple to communicate translates to time spent confirming the right location, multiple calls and costs of recharging phones. What ends up happening is that customers have to collect their packages from the other side of the road instead of getting real doorstep deliveries. 

An e-commerce business is built around the customer’s convenience. More and more people are willing to pay for the extra convenience of doorstep delivery. Most customers say that delivery impacts their loyalty to an e-commerce brand. Improving delivery is an effective way for e-commerce platforms to boost customer satisfaction and retain users. 

How can this be done? 

Digitalising the solution 

Addressya is digital technology that helps to address the problem of lack of national addressing systems. Anyone can create a digital address on the platform which is accurate and easy to share. Addressya can be integrated addressing with on a business can website and allow you to manage your logistics from one platform. 

What we are doing is giving businesses a solution to their logistical challenges around addresses to enhance how businesses in eCommerce conduct theirs deliveries and move from the manual way of doing follow-up for the location.

To fully take advantage of the e-commerce opportunity it’s important to address some of the crucial challenges. Businesses can leverage the solutions that Addressya for accurate addresses and get deliveries right. With our solution, we believe more businesses can go digital with their services.

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