Electronic commerce (eCommerce) platform, Jumia will be giving loans of various sizes to about 60 of its vendors, as part of process targeted at lifting the sub-sector in Nigeria.
Jumia Global Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Jeremy Hodara, who disclosed this, informed that the online shopping platform has 15, 000 vendors in the country.
Against the usual two weeks of Black Friday sales, Hodara informed that Jumia will be dedicating a month for this year’s promo sales, which start soonest.
The Global CEO, who informed that Nigeria remains the largest market among the 20 countries Jumia currently has its footprints across Africa, said from last year’s Black Friday, the firm had over eight million customers, who patronized the platform during the promo, “but this year, we are targeting doubling that figure. We started preparation for this year’s own since January and we are sure that we have the capacity to do this year’s promo for a month.”
According to him, the demand is still in Nigeria despite the various economic challenges. He stressed that the Nigerian economy has indeed been very tough in the last 18 months, which had thrown up lots of unpredictable behaviour from the consumers.
Hodara, who disclosed that despite Jumia celebrating five years in Nigeria, “we have not been profitable. Despite that, we are still investing in the business in various forms. Jumia is a Nigerian company that will be here for another 100 years. We are on the long term. Nigeria is our biggest market. We are not in a hurry to make profit.
It took Amazon about 25 years before they could become profitable. But we shall remain consistent, serving the Nigerian economy thoroughly.”
He listed professionalism; needs and impact; trustworthiness as some of the criteria that Jumia will be employing to disburse loans to selected vendors.
