Hard times hit Jumia as it integrates subsidiaries

Jumia, Nigeria’s first online shopping platform, has faced the economic meltdown by merging its Jumia Market (Kaymu), into Jumia Mall, another of its subsidiaries due to under performance and slow growth in the country’s e-commerce space, BusinessDay finds.
Industry watchers say the online shopping website which launched in 2012 opened up Nigeria’s e-commerce space and spread its tentacles very wide, with presence across 23 African countries with different lines of services including; Jumia, Jumia Market, Jumia Travel, Jumia, Food, Jumia House, Jumia Jobs, Jumia Car, Jumia Deals and Jumia services, seemed to be doing very well especially with healthy competition from other e-commerce platforms and the introduction of a cashless economy until early 2016, when the Nigerian economy which has its largest market suffered a recession.
“So many companies suffered the blow of recession last year but it was tougher for e-commerce because as you know, the industry is quite young and Nigerians were just beginning to trust shopping online. But with less disposable income, not many people were thinking of shopping online in the last one year,” Subomi Sodipo, industry analyst and CEO, CF mobile told BusinessDay.
Juliet Anammah, CEO, Jumai, said in a statement made available to BusinessDay that; “After announcing, the merger of our nine product and service platforms under a single Jumia Brand, in 2016, we have now taken further steps to merge the Jumia ecosystem with the complete integration of the Jumia Market platform into the Jumia Mall operations. What this means is that Jumia Market vendors and customers now have full and unrestricted access to both Jumia Mall and Jumia Market services through one unified platform – www.jumia.com.ng.
“This is another important step that ensures that Jumia remains Africa’s No.1 E-commerce Platform and that our customers and vendors are continuously satisfied,” Anammah stated.
It should be recalled that Jumia Market had earlier this year made significant changes to its website, by upgrading its navigation system to enable customers shop more easily.
Massimiliano Spalazzi, CEO, Jumia Market Africa said; “the new layout strengthens the identity of the thousands of people selling on Jumia Market every day.
The company also embarked on a campaign to engage and educate Nigerian shoppers on the value and convenience that shopping online can offer in the present economic climate.
Despite all efforts, Jumia Market was unable to stay afloat on its own and has now been merged with Jumia Mall operations.
Jumia formerly known as Africa Internet Group (AIG) is an ecosystem of online commerce, market place and classified websites and applications.

 

Jumoke Akiyode