Exclusive: Jiji Reveals Plans for The Kenyan Market
Maksym Golubev and Head of PR at Jiji Kenya, Grace Gikonyo
With technology in business becoming the next frontier the local e commerce has witnessed a surge in recent years growing into a multi-billion industries.
Kenya is now the 54th largest market for eCommerce with a revenue of US$2 billion according 2021 figures.
With an increase of 44%, the Kenyan eCommerce market contributed to the worldwide growth rate of 29% in 2021.
New markets are emerging, and existing markets also have the potential for further development.
It is projected that the growth will continue over the next few years propelled by the expanding middle class.
In an Exclusive interview with Maksym Golubev, Country Manager Jiji Kenya one of the leading e commerce platforms in Africa we sought to find what the changes portend for the Ecommerce sector in the continent
- Just A brief overview of what you do as JIJI
Jiji is a leading online marketplace in Africa, which provides buyers and sellers with an avenue to meet and exchange goods and services. With operations across five countries, the platform attracts over 11 million unique users monthly that engage with over 3 million ads with a total value of over $10 billion. Jiji is currently among the most downloaded and highest-rated apps in African e-commerce.
- Over the years you’ve focused on people cashing in on second hand items they don’t use. Are you still in the same position?
Many people think we only concentrate on second hand items, due to the popularity of the second hand items on our products, but our platform has both new and used items and we also have service providers who offer all types of services on our platform.
- How has the market changed?
We penetrated the market in July, 2019 but we set up shop in March, 2020, when Covid had just set in. Many people were converting their businesses to online, considering the harsh economic conditions in the country. We had a surge in the number of sellers on our platform and we were able to get many more buyers.
With over ten online platforms in the market by the time we penetrated, we have become the fastest growing e-commerce with over 6 million users and 2 million ads in Kenya and 2.5million unique visitors per month, leading among all platforms in Kenya, in the last one year and generally rated the fastest growing e-commerce platform. This comes at a time when most e-commerce companies lose popularity and struggle to stay afloat
- You recently rebranded how crucial is that as you expand across the continent?
The rebranding coincided with a period of strong growth in our company and a period of unprecedented change in the way e-commerce is marketed, especially with the Post Covid wave. We have always tried to be innovative with marketing, and the evolution of our brand underpins this. We wanted a modern and adaptable style but with links to our African heritage, since we are recognized as the highest rated app and e-commerce in Africa. This is important for our clients, to identify more with us, and so it is crucial for us.
- What has been your most defining moment at the helm of JIJI?
I’d say here there was a lot, especially the exponential growth of Jiji in such a short time, considering it was a Covid-19 baby. We won four major awards last year, two as best classifieds websites, another one as mobile app of the year, shopping and e-commerce and the other one as Pacesetters in E-commerce.
However, I believe the most defining moment was when we reduced the scam levels up to 10 times compared to what it was before Jiji’s acquisition of OLX.
When we first got into the Kenyan space in 2020, there was a general fear of scams among online marketplaces. We have changed the narrative so far, by building a new trusted e-commerce environment for all our buyers and sellers.
- How has that changed the organization’s approach to the market?
We realized that in order for any market to adopt and adapt to any e-commerce platform, there needs to be trust formed first and value the target market gets from the platform that would make them stick to that platform as their preferred site.
That has taken us such a short time because we first started by understanding the needs of the customers. With all categories of products listed on our site, buyers are able to enjoy the wide variety, since we have everything, ranging from property, cars, fashion, electronics, etc and even services. Sellers are also able to find more than 6 million buyers per month on the platform. Our ads are relatively cheap for the common mwananchi and the fact that we do not charge any commission makes many choose us, especially with the inflation which has affected many people’s spending power.
This has led us to acquire over 1 million unique visitors per month to our site, as many e-commerce sites struggle to stay afloat.
- There have been claims that some of the products listed on your platform end up not being what consumers get. What can be done about this?
We do not sell the products on behalf of the sellers, hence we may not verify all the products that are sold on our site. However, we have taken measures to improve safety by deploying artificial intelligence tools and algorithms. These algorithms and tools based on user behaviour track suspicious ads and automatically block them.
After our acquisition with Cars 45, we have also taken the initiative to inspect vehicles by more than 200 parameters. Unlike a classifieds marketplace where checks are inadequately carried out, we ensure quality checks and detailed reports on a car’s condition with various databases and determine the right prices before they are sold and/or auctioned.
We are highly focused on security and can solve any issues in the short term. That’s why we ask users to leave a review after purchasing. If you run into any problems with a seller, you can report us, and Jiji Team will check this seller as soon as possible.
We ask users to:
- do not pay in advance, even for the delivery;
- try to meet at a safe, public location;
- check the item before buying it;
- pay only after collecting the item;
These tips can help them to stay safe.
- You deal more with classifieds may be which categories of products are recording an increase in sales
Truly, we have registered a sharp growth in the number of sellers which has grown to 2million ads, while active monthly users are now at 6 million.
If we are talking about the world in general, classified business has grown up to two times during the pandemic. At Jiji, cars is the leading category and with the acquisition of Cars45 which offers other services such as swapping, inspections, insurance services, etc, we have grown to be the preferred platform for car sales and buying. We have also had a huge increase in electronics, mobile phones, furniture, fashion categories, in terms of demand and supply on our platform just because of the pandemic and post pandemic as more users go online.
- What should we expect in the coming months?
We acquired cars45 last year and we believe in the next few months, Jiji will become the no. 1 most trusted and preferred partner for selling and buying cars in Kenya. We will invest a lot in improving the experience and process of buying and selling cars in Jiji.
Currently we are rated as the most downloaded and highest traffic monthly, compared to all e-commerce sites. We are going to work alot more to reduce the churning rate by coming up with more ways of ensuring that our buyers and sellers get more value on the app
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