E-commerce now a reality for Kenyan entreprenuers

Did you know that Africa has a population of 950 million and with the current growth rate our population size will be comparable to that of India and China? Did you know that Africa has the 10th largest economy in the world? The internet users in Africa are estimated at 67 million currently with a historical growth rate of 1,392% since 2000. Africa has 264 million mobile users with a 50% growth rate since 2006. Now that is potential.

According to a white paper by Juniper Research, Africa is among the leading regions for national mobile money transfer services in 2014. Africa is among the top three regions that will represent over 60% of the global mobile money transfer gross transaction value by 2013. This translates the African mobile transfer industry to a market value exceeding 5 billion USD.

Various Kenyan entrepreneurs have read the writing on the wall and created online stores for their business to reach their consumer leveraging on the advent of an E-commerce boom. Intrepid data systems, a Kenyan owned company, have launched a new product to bridge mobile-online transactions. The product has made it easy for your customers who have access to mobile money transfer services, to make online payments.

iPay is a mobile money transaction processing system that incorporates the popular M-Pesa and Zap modes of money transfer. The service enables entrepreneurs to receive payments from purchases made on their websites. Then all you have to do is deliver the product to the customer.

This product will enable the growth of E-commerce transactions as it overcomes the barriers of support from banks, low penetration of credit cards and low access to financial services. There is no time like the present to incorporate E-commerce into your website and connect with consumers across the continent.
Online transactions will increase your market exposure drastically. It provides a reliable reference of actual sales and greatly reduces business overheads. You are also able to engage your target market don a one on one basis and get their feedback and opinions on your products. Thus enabling product innovation and market gap analysis. Overall you will be able to respond quicker to customer needs.

To the team at intrepid, Kudos for creating a wealth opportunity for Kenyan entrepreneurs that will impact the continent.

For an in depth look at the African continent and market opportunities see the book below by Vijay Mahajan, author of Africa Rising: How 900 Million Consumers Offer More Than You Think. Though often overlooked in global corporate growth strategies, he argues, Africa as a whole has enough consumer power to give China and India a run for their money.