By Steve Agbota
Jumia, online market mall, has said it repositioned e-commerce sector in Nigeria by exploring better innovative technologies and market trends, to deliver the best online shopping experience and options for customers across the country.
Launched in 2012, the company said it has attracted global recognition to the industry, which also attracted huge foreign direct investment into the country leading to a rise in the industry’s contribution to nation’s gross domestic product.
Speaking at a press conference last week in Lagos to announce the company’s fifth anniversary, slated for July 3 and 13, 2017, the company’s Managing Director, Juliet Anammah, said that Jumia has been helping customers to take crucial decisions as regards to their daily needs by creating an avenue for them to shop online at ease with convenience on delivery.
She said the company brings all its ventures together in one platform, which include Jumia market, Jumia travel, Jumia, car and Jumia food to give customers access and gateway to be able to deal with all customer’s decisions at home. Adding that while a customer is shopping for his daughter or his wife, such customer can also order food for the family.
Jumia, she disclosed started with five staff as an e-commerce startup, has created jobs for thousands of Nigerians whilst also empowering them to become entrepreneurs, by constantly equipping them with the right tools and training through the recent launch of Jumia Academy.
On the company’s fifth anniversary, she explained that it would be a week to celebrate the existence of a company, “To celebrate the fact that we have been the pioneer in the market, the innovation that we brought into the market, celebrate building an entire ecosystem because when you go through all the ventures that are within Jumia group, it really an ecosystem, which makes the anniversary special.
“Like we say in Jumia, this is year five of a hundred year journey, we are still very much a young company, still growing but is worth celebrating how far we have come in five years. We also want to celebrate by thanking our customers, vendors and different partners who have supported us in the last five years along the journey.”
Also, Managing Director of Jumia Travel, Kushal Dutta disclosed that said the challenges faced initially the company since its inception was to change customers behaviour of buying things offline to online mall. “We are happy that we have significantly work towards it and we now see a lot people starting buying things online and there are many other e-commerce companies in the market to educate and therefore, the transformation is happening.” Adding that the second challenge was lack of payment security in online payment, which distract a lot of customers to come to the company’s site.
“That is the reason we have customised the buying process by creating a local payment solution such as cash-on-delivery when you are buying a shoe, you pay at the delivery process.”