Jumia Kenya has announced that it projects to grow its product category by 2X more next year to 1M, to position the company as the only online one-stop-shop in Africa. This follows the recent success of Black Friday event which saw the company attract an all-time high 10M customers to the platform over the course of the campaign.
The annual sales event, which was initiated in Kenya in 2015 by Jumia continues to remain the largest online shopping event of the year.
“This year’s Black Friday has broken all records across all our business ventures despite the challenging business environment over the last few months. This is great news for the thousands of Kenyan businesses that took part in the event, and re-affirms that Jumia is the future of online retail in Kenya. We are grateful to everyone who made it possible for us to deliver happiness in all aspects shopping, travel and even food,” said Estelle Verdier, the Chief Operating Officer of Jumia Travel.
Among those who enjoyed the excitement of Black Friday was Sam Odima from Kitui who won a piece of land in Nanyuki from Jumia in partnership with i-Properties.
While receiving his title deed from Jumia on Tuesday, Mr Odima said he was extremely humbled having won the piece of land through the online platform.
“I was so surprised when I received a call from Jumia declaring me as the winner of the piece of land in Nanyuki. I went to their website every day to make sure that I found the letters which made up the voucher code to unlock this piece of land. Am also grateful for their generosity in catering for all my travel, accommodation and meal plans during this trip to Nairobi to claim the deed,” said an excited Odima.
The online retailer also plans to implement a customer loyalty program from next year to tap into the customer loyalty; seen from the repeat customers who prefer to shop online for lower prices, convenience, choice & good quality products. Average sessions per customers who visit Jumia platform daily stands at 3.
Key highlights of the 2017 Black Friday Festival:
- Black Friday Festival 2017 attracted 9.6 million visits to Jumia online platform over the course of the campaign. The annual sales event, which was initiated in Kenya in 2015 by Jumia, remains the largest online shopping event of the year, with offline retailers joining in this year as well.
- 3X more products delivered over the month of November than last year, and finished the month almost 10X larger than we were in January. This is re-affirms significant growth of e-commerce industry in Kenya.
- First delivery was made to a student in Nairobi who ordered within 1 minute of the event going live
- 9.6 million customers accessed Jumia Kenya over the period, with average sessions per user standing at 3
- 20% of visits came from the Jumia App, with the rest split between Mobile Web and Desktop, an increase over last year & driven by 150,000 new app downloads.
- 3X more vendors participated in the event, listing 20X more products (600,000 products were listed for the sale compared to 30,000 last year same event)
- The furthest delivery from Nairobi was to: Mandera (near trijunction of Kenya / Ethiopia / Somalia) – approx 1029 km
- Exclusive Brand launches: (Huawei Mate 10, Infinix Zero 5 and Oppo F5 youth
Top 3 fastest moving categories:
- Groceries (Unga, rice, sugar, blue band, royco, action, omo) – 15X bigger than last year
- Baby, Kids & Toys (diapers, toys, accessories) – 5X bigger than last year
- Televisions and home theatres – 3X bigger than last year
What are the most popular products? (Unilever’s Blue Band, Pampers Diapers, Infinix Hot 5 Lite)
Whilst sales traditionally focused on mobile phones and electronics, this year’s best sellers have been FMCG products from mainstream brands such as Tuskys, Unilever and Procter & Gamble. The company launched the grocery category just this year, aiming at driving higher repeat purchase from their customer base.
New Entrants
· Automotive – Sold 4 brand new cars discounted at 15% in partnership with Simba Colt (cars were Renault Kwid model)
· Land give-away in Nanyuki in partnership with iProperties Ltd.
· Livestock – Goats for Kes 1,000 and kienyeji chicken for Kes 99!
Highest region purchase in order during BF 2017:
· Nairobi 75%
· Mombasa 5%
· Other locations (20%)
