Jumia takes on competition with next day delivery

Jumia has re-energised its service, Jumia Express, formerly Jumia First, in order to reduce its delivery time to all Kenyan customers.

Announcing the move, Jumia Managing Director Sam Chappatte said that only products on the site with a Jumia Express logo will be delivered next day in Nairobi, and one day faster than normal in other parts of the country. These products include groceries, fashion, smartphones, TVs and home appliances.

“Given that these products are sitting in our warehouse, we are guaranteed to have 100% availability and can pick and pack these products much faster than those that are sitting with vendors. This ensures Jumia Express orders are faster,” said Chappatte.

This comes as the online retailer strives to outdo the growing competition from other online retailers such as Kilimall, Safmall and other small retailers realising the potential in online marketing. Jumia has also supplemented the service by doubling the number of vendors on the platform so far this year, and grown its assortment 10 times to 350,000 products since last year.

“Our customers want us to deliver as fast as possible. We have been working very hard to make this happen, and can now consistently deliver Jumia Express orders next day within Nairobi and  up to one day faster in the rest of the country. Thousands of products are now available on Jumia Express, with more vendors signing up to the service each week”, said Chappatte.

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Tuskys and Unilever are among suppliers in Kenya whose products are being fulfilled by Jumia Express. The service is made available to Jumia’s vendors at a moderate cost, and is being increasingly sought after by vendors using Jumia as their marketer, as it is linked with higher sales and saves warehousing space.

Small vendors like Laura Aura, whose shop name on Jumia is Mikalla Hair Essentials, says this is a welcome advantage as she sometimes struggles with overstocking.

“My focus now is on re-stocking as I don’t have to worry about space. Especially now that we are entering another re-election period, it is safer to store our goods with Jumia under Jumia Express and let them sell for us,” said Ms Aura.

Jumia Express is only available to local vendors. Products coming from abroad on the Jumia Global program will continue to take 10-12 days to be delivered.