Introduction
Data shows that the number of e-commerce users in Africa will surpass half a billion by 2025.
Now this number is too big if you are a small e-commerce player, however, it still plays an important role.
As technology is adopted rapidly in Kenya, that brings with it growth in multiple sectors, e-commerce included. Therefore, with such a positive outlook, it is important for businesses to ensure that they are doing everything they can to drive traffic to their digital assets and increase conversions.
However, there are a number of challenges that face e-commerce businesses in Kenya. In this article, we will look into some of these roadblocks and how to solve them.
Delivery charges and route mapping
Delivery efficiency is one of the major things when it comes to online shopping. I’d say it’s the second most important aspect, only after great website user experience.
Take Amazon for instance, the largest e-commerce company in the world. Jeff Bezos, the tacky founder, put a lot of emphasis on the distribution of products bought. He set up what is now called fullfilment centres in strategic states to ensure they cut on waiting time.
To him, customer satisfaction was (is) very crucial. And especially today when users have an array of options to choose from, you have to be on your A game.
So let’s talk about delivery efficiency.
Once a customer orders from a website, the transition from website to fulfillment needs to be easy and seamless. Since they have already entered their address, the e-commerce system should be able to locate the nearest fulfillment centre. IN Kenya and AFrica however, most businesses have one fulfillment centre.
Related: Designing an e-commerce site in Kenya
Moreover, most e-commerce businesses are a bit manual. Let me explain.
When a customer makes an order at 9:00 pm, the order will be booked in the system, however, the dispatch will be done the next day since no one was working at that time, meaning we have time lost.
In developed countries, a dispatch is registered on the system as soon as that order is made, and the delivery process commences.
Is this the fault of e-commerce businesses? Absolutely not. However, it is an area we can look to improve.
Imagine if the order was processed in real time. The product would get to the customer first thing in the morning.
Another reason why businesses in Kenya and Africa face this challenge is inadequate security.
Parcels are usually delivered to the doorstep of customers in developed nations.
In Kenya, let’s just say that would not be a good idea.
Therefore, the courier has to ensure they speak to the customer to find out who they can give the product if the person who made the order is not present unlike abroad where the product will be left at the door of the address entered on the website.
The other issue is delivery mapping.
You’ll find that there is no standardized delivery mapping system as well as delivery charges.
Most small e-commerce businesses do not have dedicated courier services and rely on the mapping and pricing of third parties which at times is not convenient. For example, a business will rely on G4S courier services or send the product using a boda boda (public motorbike) guy.
In my opinion, businesses that want to have satisfied customers need to have dedicated delivery services. You need to have 100% control in the fulfillment process.
Payment gateways
When purchasing goods or services online, a customer wants to have an easy time making payments.
Stripe is one of the biggest payment gateways in the world.
However, it is not available in Kenya and most countries in Africa.
This has led to the emergence of other local players in the payment gateway world such as Pesapal, cellualant, flutterwave, among others.
These payment gateways understand the local market as they provide customers with Mpesa as a payment option.
As much as flutterwave is a big player, my personal experience is that the gateway sometimes takes too long to load which affects user experience.
However, Stripe is still a big miss as its user experience compared to the local alternatives is superior.
As we wait for Stripe to include Kenya, we will still continue to use the available platforms at out disposal.
Manual Intervention
When you make an order from Amazon, or Jumia, the manual intervention is little if at all any.
But, most small e-commerce players in the country still rely heavily on manual intervention in the following ways:
- Some do not have payment gateways on their websites. They require you to pay via mobile money and share payment confirmation. After that, they still have to enquire about your location so that they can send the package.
- Another manual intervention involves ecommerce players without websites. These companies rely on their social media pages. Therefore, they will have to call you to confirm payment and delivery address.
- Other ecommerce websites have a website and a payment gateway. However, because of a lack of trust, customers do not enter their actual address on the site. They would rather give this to a human through WhatsApp or a phone call.
Lack of social and email commerce capabilities
Having a website is a big win when it comes to the e-commerce industry.
However, to add to this, businesses need to complement this with social commerce.
Social commerce is defined as a form of e-commerce that involves retargeting your audience on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, X, and more.
Email Commerce is where we retarget users on email service providers such as Gmail.
Related: Email Marketing in Kenya
You need to connect your website to social media platforms to increase the chances of conversion.
Not every website visit will lead to a sale. We therefore call this top funnel visibility. But because we do not want the prospect to forget about us, we try and meet them on other platforms that they will be on.
The goal here is to be visible at every (most) touchpoint(s).
If we take the sales funnel, the lower they go, the more intent the user has. Therefore, retarget your products/services with different copy based on where you think the user is at.
For example, you can retarget a user who added a product/service to the shopping cart with an FB/IG Ad that provides a promo code valid for 2 days only.
You can also send them an email letting them know of the same.
Once they purchase the product/service, you can run an Ad upselling the goods sold or providing the user with a discount for being a customer.
This is what I mean by having social commerce capabilities.
Product Variety
There is a reason why we all love Amazon. Apart from their user-friendly site, and efficiency, it is the options that make this site a powerhouse.
If you visit a brick and mortor shop and only have very little to choose from, you’ll either leave and look for another shop, or buy what’s there and never return.
The same is true for e-commerce businesses. You need to have some variety to attract, not new customers, but returning ones.
Most businesses can attract new customers, but not all can get them to keep coming back.
Related: How to rank your website higher on Google using E-E-A-T
However, we know that cash flow is a major problem facing SMEs not only in Kenya but the entire world which affects the inventory.
With that said, e-commerce businesses that find a way to have product variety will be one step closer of having more returning customers.
Related: How To Implement SEO on Your Own
