…Partners Aliexpress, MTN Momo
Traders of Africa (TOFA), a Pan-African hub for facilitating trade within Africa, has formed a new alliance with Aliexpress and MTN Momo targeted at creating new opportunities for businesses in Africa to seamlessly connect with global markets.
The new alliance makes it possible for people to buy goods on the TOFA or Aliexpress platforms from anywhere in the world, make payments in local African currencies and have the goods delivered to the buyer with ease in less than 21 days.
Speaking at the official unveiling of the alliance in Lagos on Friday, Uju Uzo-Ojinaka, CEO of Traders of Africa, said the aim is to give African products access to new markets and build a one-stop-shop where people can order goods, make payments and get the goods delivered to them with ease.
She said the service is not only available for consumers of products but also for B2B customers who order in bulk.
“This means that big-time importers can bring in a container load of goods or air cargo while Aliexpress’ partnership with SpeedAF ensures the goods are delivered to the buyer. It is called shopping without borders.
“We are in partnership with the National Action Committee on the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), and we have been executing and onboarding people on the platform through the AfCFTA platform. AfCFTA wants to create a single market in Africa and Traders of Africa is positioned to be the marketplace where everyone comes to buy African products,” she said.
Uzo-Ojinaka said the MTN Momo’s role is to make payment seamless to customers eliminating payment glitches that come with making payments via the traditional banks.
“We are confident that this development would help traders in our local markets from Maiduguri to Abia to Lagos as we showcase the various registered indigenous items on our platform for the world to see,” she said.
Victor Ejiogu, front-end developer at TOFA, said the platform was not just an e-commerce website but a full marketplace that deals directly with companies, buyers and sellers across the continent and the world.
He said the problem the platform was trying to solve was the issue of trust in transactions between buyers and sellers and the difficulties people experienced in paying for items on AliExpress.
Also speaking, Usoro Usoro, executive director of Strategy at MoMo PSB, said the mandate for them is to drive not just financial inclusion but digital inclusion and connectivity as well.
“We plan to drive digital inclusion not just in Nigeria but Africa. We are helping businesses onboard on the platform to make payments simply and seamlessly. MoMo is helping digital service providers and their customers to come on our application to pay seamlessly.
“We are trying to build payment trails for Africa in local currency. You can send money to about 14 African countries in local currency via Momo without a dollar or foreign exchange barriers. The future for us is to open up all corridors within Africa for people to send and receive money seamlessly whether at an agent or merchant location,” Usoro said.
On the logistics aspect, Emeka Nwangwu, deputy managing director of SpeedAf, assured customers of seamless delivery of every good purchased from the TOFA marketplace.
According to him, SpeedAF handles logistics and ensures that imported goods from China to Nigeria are cleared, warehoused and delivered to the owners within 21 days of full notification of movements of goods.
Speaking via Zoom, Geoffrey Jian, director of African operations at AliExpress, said Africa possessed immense potential and opportunities in trade.
He said the platform would further drive business to business, business to country and international trade running into millions.
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