E-Commerce platform Jumia Kenya has signed a partnership with Equity Mastercard which will see customers get 10% discounts for all their purchases.
However, the discounts will only benefit users of MasterCard who will be with their cards on Jumia. The move is expected to drive Equity customers’ increased card usage and promote cashless payment.
Jumia & MasterCard first partnered in 2016, with the successful launch of MasterCard Payment Gateway solutions in several markets. That same year, MasterCard supported Jumia in the launch of Jumia Pay, the online platform’s payment service that facilitates transactions for consumers and sellers.
Recently, Equity bank has been coming up with innovative ways to facilitate cashless transactions among its customers. Through the cards, the bank is looking to offer a wide array of attractive products suited to different customers’ lifestyles and consumer needs.
E-commerce has been growing in Africa with Jumia leading the way hence its nickname ‘the Amazon of Africa’. E-commerce has been on the frontline of promoting cashless payments with most platforms preferring the pay before delivery method.
In Kenya, only 1% of Kenyans buy goods online while the rest prefer to physically purchase from the shop. However, there are signs of this percentage improving with time as more Kenyans switch to digital.
10% of smartphone sales in the country are done online, according to statistics by Jumia. Just the fact that Kenyans are buying smartphones shows how the country is digitalizing. The fact that 10% of those buying phones are doing so online is a sign of growth in the country’s E-Commerce sector.
455 million people are active Internet users out of the 1.2 billion population of the world today. Last year, the Jumia E-Commerce website was visited by 100 million people in Africa. However, out of these numbers, only 4 million actually transacted.
Furthermore, putting products online is cheaper than actually setting up a physical shop. There is a lot of capital put in setting up a shop for your products but with E-Commerce, all you need is a warehouse to store your products.
Kenya is still growing in E-Commerce but there is a promise for improvement in the future. An entrepreneur or manufacturer who has just started selling online today will have tremendous experience by the time E-Commerce will be hot in the country.
