An E-Commerce Challenge in Africa: Selling to People Who Aren’t Online

While stuck in traffic in Lagos a few years ago, I noticed a couple of delivery motorcycles buzzing in between the stopped cars. Emblazoned across the sides of the motorbikes was the logo of Jumia, a company that brands itself as the “largest e-commerce platform in Africa.” I’d heard about the bikes, but this was the first time I’d seen them in action: a bespoke solution to the problem of commercial delivery in Nigeria. All around, Lagos’s street-level trading culture was bustling despite the ninety-degree heat. Beneath umbrella-covered stands, dozens of curbside merchants sold products as varied as mobile phones and kola nuts. Venders walked in the congested lanes with goods stacked on their heads, hawking batteries, DVDs, road maps, drinks, and snacks to drivers. The motorbikes throttled around them, at times coming alarmingly close to the peddlers, threatening a literal collision between present and future Nigerian commerce.