Kenya: Women Dominate Kenya’s e-Commerce Space at 51% – Jumia Africa

Women have dominated the e-commerce sector in Kenya, standing at 51 percent, Jumia Africa has revealed in their report dubbed ‘Africa E-commerce Index 2021’.

The report which encompassed Kenya and Africa revealed that in Kenya, women were the most active sellers in e-commerce, with 51 percent of them being business owners on the Jumia platform.

Nigeria had a similar 51 percent rate with Ivory Coast following in third place with a 31 percent rate.

Overall, the report noted that Kenya, South Africa, and Nigeria are the leading fintech ecosystems in Africa.

Jumia Kenya Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Sam Chappate said that the E-Commerce space is female entrepreneur-friendly and has driven many women to start their businesses full-time or part-time.

“E-commerce is inherently female-entrepreneur friendly. There are no gatekeepers, and this has made it easy for many women to start their businesses full-time or part-time. As you can see some of our best sellers are female entrepreneurs,” he said.

He added that women’s participation was a key driver of inclusive development in Africa, with Jumia striving to close the gender gap by aiding women-owned businesses to grow and achieve their targeted revenues.

“Over the past two years, Jumia has been offering training to both women and men and equipped them with the necessary skills to grow their business and gain maximum revenue input from their services.,” he said.

The report further revealed that since the onslaught of the pandemic in 2019, there has been a shift in online consumer shopping behavior towards Fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) and beauty products.

This was a jump from 44 percent Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) in 2019 to 57 percent in 2020.

“The pandemic has shifted consumer behavior. Kenyans are now increasingly considering online shopping for their everyday needs -seeking convenience, high-quality products, and competitive prices, the service is turning into an everyday solution,” Chappate said.

Nairobi was also revealed to top the list as the Kenyan city with the highest number of online deliveries, followed by Mombasa and Kiambu.

A majority of the Sub-Saharan population do not have an account at a financial institution or mobile money provider.