COVID-19 bit hard on the economy of the world forcing millions of businesses to scale down operations, with others shutting down to contain the situation. In Kenya, the small businesses have been at the verge of collapsing and despite the government, intervention to keep them afloat with tax cuts and other incentives, they might not recover from the blow that comes with this deadly virus,
To bridge the gap, Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA) in partnership with Jumia have invented a plan to help businesses grow their sales and retain their staff amid this pandemic. They have come up with the Digital Commerce Program where thousands of businesses will be registered and trained to sell online with access to over 4 million Kenyans that visit Jumia’s platform monthly.
“Now more than ever, we need to be all-hands-on-deck to help cushion businesses from the impact of COVID-19. We will commit resources to support KEPSA’s Digital Commerce initiative, to train vendors & give them the tools to sell online effectively. We hope this will save jobs in the short term and help digitize the economy over the longer term”, said Jumia Kenya CEO, Sam Chappatte.
One will be able to open and start up their shops on Jumia at no costs. The commerce platform has promised to slash cut commissions on vendors by 50% for locally manufactured goods and to 1% for all businesses enrolling via the Digital Commerce Program for their first month on the platform. It will offer free online training, ranging from the basics of e-commerce to operations, marketing, finance and sale supporting the businesses all the way up in their operations.
“We are pleased to partner with Jumia through the Digital Commerce Program to support Kenyan businesses by giving them the tools & training on how to sell online. We believe, Jumia is the best-positioned e-commerce company to do this – with its current scale & countrywide operations – and is prepared to invest upfront in this initiative. It is widely expected that these businesses will list on other online platforms to grow their sales further.” said KEPSA CEO, Ms Carole Karuga.
At the moment, the KEPSA Digital Commerce Program is limited to Nairobi, but will soon expand to other counties.
