Jumia Extend Operations To Northern Nigeria With Kano Launch

inShare2 

VENTURES AFRICA – Nigeria’s largest online retail store, Jumia Nigeria has extended its reach to Kano, the second largest commercial city in the country.
“This expansion is one of many to come as we already have hub stations in 9 other states,” Co-CEO at Jumia Nigeria, Nicola Martin said.
There has been much scepticism with regards seeking business prospects in the Northern part of Nigeria, which has been sizzled with different violent attacks by terror group, Boko Haram group, but Jumia believes the extension will provide a new set of consumers with a vast array of retail products and alternative payments systems.

Jumia Nigeria’s expansion to Kano colludes with the recent launch of a Web pop-up shop the company launched for UK-based Nigerian diaspora.
The online store will allow customers buy goods (including those found only in the U.K.) for friends and relatives in Nigeria with their credit cards in British currency. Purchases are scheduled to be delivered within eight days after customers makes their order.
The Web pop-up store will be open for a cautionary one hundred days to determine the acceptance of the site by the public. If a huge demand is envisaged, a permanent domain will be created.
“…the idea was to provide a service to Nigerians in the U.K. to shop for their friends and family in Nigeria,” Olivier Le Blainvaux, Jumia’s U.K. project manager told Wall Street Journal.
Jumia has achieved commendable success since it launched two years ago in Lagos and it continues to expand into key sub-Saharan African market including Egypt, Kenya and Morocco.
In spite of the success achieved by the company over the years, former Managing Director, Tunde Kehinde claimed that the e-commerce business has not been profitable.
“There is a plan to get profitable but a bigger plan is to win the market,” Tunde Kehinde said at the Africa’s Payments, Banking and Retail Show in Johannesburg, South Africa.