The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Jumia

  • Jumia employees docked over alleged theft

    Two employees of Jumia Services Ltd., Olalekan Adekoya and Ilozionwu Chukwunonso, on Thursday appeared before an Ikeja Magistrates’ Court over alleged theft of the online shop’s five phones valued at N278, 000.

    Adekoya resides at No. 20, Pipeline Road,  Idimu, while Chukwunonso lives at No. 21, Musa Ajakaye St., Alagbado, Lagos.

    They are facing a two-count charge of conspiracy and stealing, but they pleaded not guilty.

    According to the Prosecutor, Sgt. Ishola Samuel, the defendants committed the offences with some others still at large, on Jan. 30 at No. 1 Surulere St., Off Adeniyi Jones, Ogba, Lagos.

    Samuel alleged that the defendants stole five different brands of phones, all valued at N278, 000, from Jumia.

    READ ALSO: Jumia worker caught on CCTV ‘stealing phones’

    He said that the defendants were arrested after review of a closed-circuit television camera installed   in the company.

    The alleged offences violate Sections 287 (7) and 411 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015 (Revised).

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Section 287 (7) stipulates a seven-year jail term for stealing from one’s employer, while Section 411 provides for two years’ imprisonment for conspiracy.

    The Magistrate, Mrs A. I. Abina, admitted the defendants to bail in the sum of N200, 000 with two sureties in like sum.

    Abina ordered that the sureties should be gainfully employed and show evidence of two years’ tax payment to the Lagos State Government.

    The case was adjourned until April 11 for trial.

  • Jumia unveils night food delivery service

    Jumia’s marketplace for restaurants has launched a late-night delivery service to enable customers order food up until midnight.

    The Managing Director of the company, Guy Futi, disclosed this at a press conference held at Krispy Kreme, Victoria Island, Lagos.

    “We introduced the late-night delivery service to accommodate customers, who order food at night. The late night delivery combined with initiatives such as greater customer accessibility, more payment options, more locations, lunchtime deals, seasonal deals and new related products (Jumia Party), and has led to over 120 per cent increase in the volume of orders,” Guy said.

    Speaking on efforts to ensure quick delivery of foods ordered on the platform, Guy, who was recently appointed the Managing Director of the marketplace said: “We have made it possible for orders to be picked up by the rider closest to a restaurant’s location.

    “With this, we can deliver orders to the customer’s doorstep within 40 minutes and interestingly, the delivery process can be tracked right from the time when the customer places the order to the moment the order is delivered.”

    On what to expect this year, the Head of Marketing and Vendor Success for the Marketplace, Chioma Odimegwu, said operational efficiency will be an integral part of the company’s focus in 2019.

    “In 2019, we are looking forward to welcoming a new and exciting restaurant/vendor on board within the month. We will also be engaging new partnerships across other industries to provide added value to customers, onboarding more restaurants with longer and later open hours, more focus on corporate catering offerings, encouraging closer relationships with our customers and restaurant vendors,” she said.

  • Telcoin, Jumia partner on service delivery

    TOKYO, Japan-based technology platform provider, Telcoin  and Jumia, a leading online e-commerce marketplace with presence in 15 African countries, have partnered to deliver efficient services to customers.

    Telcoin offers telecoms focused blockchain solutions.

    The partnership, to commence in the country, would tap into the synergies of blockchain technology to increase the volume of goods and services purchased on the e-commerce platform.

    Speaking on the partnership, Head of Africa for Telcoin, Ms Lee-Ann Cassie, said the firm would focus on how to increase the sales traffic from Nigerians in the Diaspora, thus adding value to cross-border e-commerce transactions as well as value-enhancing e-commerce transactions within the country.

    Also commenting on the partnership, Chief Executive Officer, Jumia Nigeria, Mrs Juliet Anammah, said: “We’re excited, to say the least, about our partnership with Telcoin, because we believe this will have a huge impact on our commitment to improving the lives of Africans through the internet, helping them to save time and money.

    “With this partnership, we can now serve Nigerians in the Diaspora who are looking to convert their digital currency to shopping vouchers on our platform. We rely on and trust Telcoin to facilitate the currency conversion since digital currency is, in the interim, not a payment method on Jumia.”

     

  • Over 30,000 vendors will offer up to 90% discount during Black Friday – Jumia CCO

    Although, an American idea, Black Friday has become one of the most anticipated shopping festivals in Nigeria. Online retail giant like Jumia offers huge discounts during this campaign to attract tons of customers during the one month long event. The Chief Commercial Officer of Jumia, Mr. Shobhit Pandey explained to our reporter on how Jumia has negotiated great discounts and deals with its vendors.

    Can you tell us about your role at Jumia?

    Today, I manage commercial in the capacity of Chief Commercial Officer. I joined Jumia about 4 years ago as a Vice President for Key Account Management

    What is Jumia doing to ensure only genuine and trusted products are listed online during the Black Friday campaign?
    We have several initiatives and measures that we take to ensure that we sell genuine products. In fact, selling genuine products is an integral part of our mission. What we do periodically is not only for Black Friday. First of all, we have some brands which are restricted for listing by any seller. For instance, Apple, LG, etc. which are banned by any vendor trying to list a product from them. Before they list, they have to show us a proof of purchase. Once we verify that the proof of purchase is from authentic purchase, we allow them to list those brands on our platform. There are times when vendors manage to list product, and then the product is sold. Then, customer checks the product and considers it to be fake. First step is we charge the vendor N50,000 as penalty and the vendor is banned to sell that product for its entire life on Jumia. If this happens for the second time from the same vendor, he or she cannot sell on Jumia for 3 months. If it happens for the 3rd time, we ban the vendor for life from being able to sell on Jumia. These are 3 key measures that we take to ensure that we sell only genuine products to our customers.

    Compared to last year’s Black Friday, what level of discounts and deals have you negotiated with your vendors for this year’s Black Friday?

    This year, we have expanded to Black Fridays (5 Fridays), instead of Black Friday ( 1 single Friday). It’s  going to run from 2nd of November to 30th. Since the length of the event is almost a month, we have managed to secure up to 90% discounts on deals. For instance, you will have about 50% off on some phones and tablets. You will have almost 50% off on TVs and audio devices,; you will have 80% off on fashion items. This year, what we’re doing differently is flash sales which is 5 times more than last year. We will have more than 1,000+ flash sales. We will have daily treasure hunts, which was not the case. You can get an iPhone XS Max for N5,000. We are also giving out vouchers which you can use and redeem within the Black Friday period. Those are the few initiatives we have, better than last year’s Black Friday.
    What’s your projection in terms of number of items to be sold this Black Friday, and what’s driving this projection?
    We are expecting that we should be able to do 5 times what we did last year’s Black Friday, in terms of number of items sold. What is driving this projection is the quality of deals that we have this year, the amount of discount we have during this period, the duration of the event which is longer than last year, and more SKUs on offer. Last year, we had +1,000,000 SKUs; this year we have 4 million SKUs on offer during this period.
    How many of your vendors are participating in this year’s Black Friday, and how many products will be listed on the platform?
    We have 30,000 vendors participating in this year’s Black Friday, which is times 3 what we had last year. In terms of products, we already have more than 10 million products, but in terms of products that should be on Black Friday deals, it should be 4 million products.

    Can you provide some insights on the process for becoming a vendor/seller on Jumia?

    To become a seller on Jumia platform, there are multiple ways you can do it. You can either sign up on the seller sign up on the website – ‘How To Become A Vendor’. After signing up, you will be contacted by one of our call centre agents to go through the next steps of becoming a vendor. You can also become a vendor, let’s say your friend is selling on Jumia, he or she can refer you to become a vendor, and you go through the process of signing up. We also have vendor training done every Tuesday and Thursday, two sessions: 10am and 4pm respectively. So we have offline training, and online training on vendor hubs. On seller center hub which is the back-end of our vendor management platform, we have online training where you can learn how to sell on Jumia, and also increase and improve your sales on Jumia. You learn the key things to do to increase your sale on Jumia, plus we also send communications to our vendors on fast moving products on top 50 money makers. For instance, if you are a vendor and you do not stock a particular product today, you will get to know about the products that are fast moving on the Jumia website, and then you can stock.

    Why should the Nigerian customers trust Jumia with their shopping this Black Friday?

    Since we started Black Friday 6 years ago, it has been a complete success. Black Friday didn’t exist in Nigeria at the time. Our mission has been to earn trust from our customers. Trust in this context goes beyond selling genuine products; trust also on the quality of things we offer during this Black Friday campaign. You can check on Google trends the peak that we reach during Black Fridays which is much more than any eCommerce platform in Nigeria. You can see the trust that customers have in us anytime we do Black Friday is a lot more than our initial Black Friday. Also, you can testify that what we we promise is what we deliver. All the products listed on the website have amazing pricing. Customers can actually trust us to give them the best offers, not only on the products they love, but also on the products they don’t plan to buy. But, because of the deals, they will eventually end up buying those products. So, finally I will say we look forward to welcoming you on our Jumia platform during Black Friday. And please download the Jumia App, you will see extra flash sales, extra discounts on the App during this Black Fridays period.

  • Jumia commends lawmakers for passing Lagos tourism agency bill

    The Managing Director of Jumia’s Hotel & Flight Marketplace, Mrs Omolara Adagunodo, on Wednesday commended the Lagos State House of Assembly for passing the bill to establish the state’s Tourism Promotion Agency.

    Adagunodo, in a statement, said that Lagos was a tourism hub and it was high time the state had a robust agency to promote tourism.

    The State House of Assembly had on Nov. 5 passed a bill for a law to provide for the establishment of the Lagos State Tourism Promotion Agency and for connected purposes.

    The Agency is being put in place to promote the state’s tourism industry and achieve international best practices in the delivery of tourism products and services.

    Adagunodo said the bill arrived at the appropriate time, with tourism’s contribution to the national economy evolving.

    The managing director urged other state houses of assembly to take a queue from Lagos and begin the process of setting up tourism promotion agencies.

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    She said that dedicating an agency to the promotion of tourist hubs in Lagos would undoubtedly increase tourism contribution to the economy.

    “The bill will further boost the status of the state as a one-stop destination for local and international tourists.

    “It will help in the promotion of various destinations and attractions in the state, including the National Theatre, Lekki Conservation, Badagry and Takwa Bay Beaches, among many others”.

    She said that the 54-section bill spelt out some of the objectives of the new agency, which include promotion, marketing and developing the state domestically and internationally as a major tourist destination by highlighting its uniqueness.

    Adagunodo said it would develop and promote the state as a premier travel and tourist destination.

    “It will also attract and increase tourist arrivals, direct tourism investment, identify and develop potential tourism destination in the state,” she said.

  • Jumia attracts millions on Black Friday

    As odd as it may sound, millions of Nigerians actually stayed awake 12 midnight on Friday to purchase their favourite products on the first day of the Jumia Black Fridays campaign, making it the most popular shopping campaign in the history of ecommerce in Nigeria

    Millions of Nigerian online shoppers were gripped with excitement on the first day of the Jumia Black Fridays campaign, which kicked off as many waited until midnight to shop their favourite products at up to 80 per cent discount. This had a positive traffic impact on the Jumia website and mobile App which peaked barely three  hours after the platforms were opened to Nigerians to start shopping.

    The Chief Executive Officer of Jumia, Juliet Anammah, who disclosed this in a press statement today, stated that this year’s Black Fridays will mark the first time the Jumia website and App will experience such an incredibly high number of visits barely 3 hours after the campaign was launched on both platforms.

    She attributed the positive development to the exciting deals, flash sales and treasure hunts available on both platforms on the first day of the company’s Black Fridays campaign. “Jumia is a trend setter, we got everyone in Nigeria talking about Black Friday and trending online after we opened the platforms to our customers, and the search traffic was at its peak unlike any other time in the history of our Black Friday campaigns. This is a good indication that Jumia is synonymous with Black Friday, and we have whet the appetites of Nigerians towards this campaign,” Anammah added.

    Jumia will be rewarding its customers with N1,000 shopping voucher on its social media platforms for being part of this historic launch and remaining patient when the platforms were at their busiest.

    “You stayed awake and made this our biggest launch ever. We’re giving you a gift of N1K voucher this morning on our social media pages for being part of this historic launch. Thank you for your loyalty and your patience while our store was at its busiest,” said Olamide Amosu, Head, Engagement Marketing, Jumia Nigeria.

    Over 30,000 vendors are participating in this year’s Jumia Black Fridays campaign, compared to over 10,000 last year. Some of the top vendors include Binatone, HP, Intel, Samsung, Syinix, Suregifts and many more.

  • Jumia: we’re committed to MSMEs’ growth

    Nigeria’s largest e-commerce platform, Jumia, said it remains committed to growing the nation’s Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).

    It said already over five million unique products have been listed; over 100,000 merchants active on the platform while it is granting local customers access to new services across the country.

    Speaking on the sixth anniversary of the firm in the country, its CEO, Juliet Anammah, said the firm has created sustainable impact on the economy, adding that it remained committed to do more.

    “Over the past six years, we have created a sustainable impact on the Nigerian economy, enabled access to new services on our platform, such as food ordering, hotel and flight booking, as well as finance solutions with Jumia Pay. We’re especially excited about these milestones; yet we’re challenged to do more and be more to our local vendors and customers,”she said in Lagos.

    She said since the firm started operations in 2012, it has grown to now become Africa’s largest e-commerce platform selling goods and services to millions of customers.

    Anammah said: “We have expanded from four to 14 countries, and our vendor network – from Lagos to Cairo, Egypt, and other African countries – has grown to 50,000 businesses offering their goods and services online.

    “It is important that we give credit to our team of dedicated and hardworking staff. Our story today is incomplete without mentioning the real drivers of the business. So our anniversary this year is a celebration of the Jumia talents who have worked tirelessly over the years to grow the business into what it is today.”

    According to Boston Consulting Group research, just 0.5 per cent of all retail on the continent takes place online compared with about 15 per cent in China—home to Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. —and five per cent in India. But companies, like Jumia, are changing the economic landscape for many African entrepreneurs.

  • Dangote crashes cement price on Jumia platform

    Dangote crashes cement price on Jumia platform

    In a new move designed to reduce price and ease logistics inherent in the purchase of its products, Dangote Cement Plc has signed a pact with foremost e-commerce platform, Jumia Nigeria, to sell its cement to customers online.

    At the unveiling of the deal in Lagos, Dangote Cement’s Key Account Director Chux Mogbolu said the company was happy to partner with the online shopping giant, in a bid to make Dangote cement available with ease to customers.

    According to the deal, Nigerians and corporate bodies wishing to purchase a minimum of 300 bags of 50kg of Dangote Cement and above can now order on Jumia from the comfort of their rooms at a reasonable price of N2,500 per bag as opposed to how much is sold in the open market and see them delivered to any place of their choice without any extra cost for transportation.

    Mogbolu, however disclosed that the purchase would only be within Lagos, Port- Harcourt and Abuja for now.

    He said: “Dangote Cement decided to work with Jumia Nigeria based on its credibility and excellent performance over the years in online shopping management.” He added that the new initiative would help arrest the scams perpetrated by online fraudsters who deceived the people by asking them to come and purchase Dangote Cement for N1000 per bag.

    “For now, the pilot scheme is live in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt, but we can extend to other cities depending on the level of demand and performance of the new deal.

    “With the deal, Nigerians in need of seamless supply of cement from Dangote can now place order and pay online and wait for the delivery in record time from any of Dangote’s nearest cement plant to Lagos, Port Harcourt or Abuja.

    “We are starting with Minimum Order Quantity (MOQ) of 300, 600 and 900. We may increase depending on demand surge as time goes on,” Mogbolu explained.

    Speaking on the deal too, Chief Executive Officer of Jumia Nigeria, Juliet Anammah said the deal with Dangote Cement is part of efforts to deepen service delivery on Jumia Nigeria online platform.

    She said expressed belief that the deal will be beneficial to all parties involved and deepen further online shopping in Nigeria as obtained all over the world.

    The Jumia Nigeria chief reflected on the 2017 Black Friday Festival and said it has attracted more than 14 million visits since the campaign started on November 13.

    “The annual sales event, which was initiated in Nigeria in 2013 by Jumia remains the busiest and largest shopping day of the year on both online and offline stores. This year’s explosive Black Friday numbers demonstrates the increasing capacity and flexibility of the online retail space in Nigeria.

    “We deliver to the 36 states across Nigeria, and are able to reach neighborhoods and shoppers who traditionally have not had access to a wide variety of products and deals. This year we also see the increasing interest in groceries and other FMCG products which reflect the increasing relevance of Black Friday to the average Nigerian,” she said.

    Some key highlights of the 2017 figures presented by Jumia Nigeria in Lagos on Thursday showed among other things that More than 1.9 million visits on Black Friday Big Bang. 14.4 million visits since the start of the sales event; overall, 85 per cent of all visits were made on a mobile device, compared to 72 per cent in 2016; and 86,000 smartphones and counting have been sold in the past two weeks.

  • Dangote sells cement on Jumia platform

    Dangote sells cement on Jumia platform

    Dangote Cement yesterday said it has taken its product to e-commerce platform, Jumia, to combat charlatans who rip off customers with fake claims about pricing.

    Key Accounts Director at Dangote Cement, Chux Mogbolu, who spoke during a press conference organised by Jumia Nigeria to unveil the milestones achieved by Jumia during ongoing Black Friday, said the partnership was between two great brands and it was designed to bring ease to customers.

    “This partnership is for life. A bag of cement on the platform is only N2,500 and it includes the cost of freighting and offloading to the warehouse of the customers. Convenience and reliability are assured. This will hopefully address online scammers who say the sell the product for N1000 per bag and never do anything. The consignment will be delivered within 48 hours,” Mogbolu said.

    He said the company would be starting the pilot project with 300 bags while hoping reduction in the minimum order quantity (MOQ) would go down in the future.

    Chief Executive Officer, Jumia, Juliet Anammah, said its 2017 Black Friday Festival has attracted more than 14 million visits since the campaign started November 13.

    The annual sales event, which was initiated in Nigeria in 2013 by Jumia remains the busiest and largest shopping day of the year on both online and offline stores.

  • Black Friday: A festival of dark and shoddy deals?

    Black Friday: A festival of dark and shoddy deals?

    By Moses Emorinken

    The recent frenzy that permeated and circulated every space – from social, terrestrial and print media is simply amazing…all in the name of Black Friday.

    Online buyers impulsively cherry-pick items such as home appliances, groceries, electronics, phones and laptops, and other similar appurtenances; they do so with the hope of getting the best deals in prices for the year.

    However, their already wide and bright grins sagged as their expectations were dashed to the ground in an epic humpty dumpty style.

    According to research in Consumer Psychology, humans are known to be the most impulsive creatures in this massive terraqueous globe we call earth.

    Our excessive desire to satisfy our insatiable wants have become a major preoccupation making us hustle and toil day and night or even borrow money that we do not have, to purchase things we do not need, in order to impress people who really do not care about us.

    What a wasteful expedition!

    In Nigeria, e-commerce sites like Jumia, Konga, DealDey etc., are amongst some of the major players in the Black Friday saga.

    Black Friday have wrapped its thick dark sheets around us just like the heavens wrap the horizons of the sky with “black” clouds before sending down the rain; the rain in our case is the purported discount promised us by a lot of these sites.

    Little wonder it is called Black Friday because of the surreptitious hoax deployed to legitimately defraud customers of their hard-earned mazuma without them knowing.

    Customers have been wooed and lured to believe they would have a blast and slash in the prices of their favourite items. However, just like the majority of gullible teenage girls who get deflowered before they clock 18, Nigerian customers have had their hearts broken, hopes dashed, and expectations dulled and lulled by the failed promissory love notes from these Casanovas called e-commerce stores. This is reminiscent to “daylight” rape and robbery.

    How do you explain the rationale behind a product being sold during the discount period, which is more expensive than it was a few weeks ago?

    They even have the effrontery to paste a former price against a discounted price and percentage off – we should be grateful…shey!?

    This is the case of Sharon: A customer who found a product on one of our popular e-commerce website. She identified the product, saw the price and took note of it; only to wait till black Friday to find that the product which she saw barely 2 weeks ago at N3,000 is now N4,000 at a “supposed” discounted price. This is absurd!

    Sometimes, what is most personal is most general; it’s almost certain that Sharon’s pitiable Black Friday story is the same narrative for so many Nigerian customers.

    Please, somebody help me…why call it ‘Black Friday’ when the promo lasts from a certain date to end on another date very distant from the start date; why call it Black Friday, why not Black Weekend?

    How do you call a bonanza period which lasts for days “Black Friday”? Meaning it was designed to start and end on that day (Friday) – not a second more. What we find today is a twisted narrated and semantics for a day of the week to be equivalent to the entire week or even more.

    Is someone trying to play on our intelligence?

    Haven’t we suffered enough from sleazy and corrupt politicians and government officials whose job description is to loot our collective patrimony all in the name of giving us the dividends of democracy?

    I think the new narrative should be that they (politicians) have promised to give us a Black Friday (instead of dividends of democracy) because Black Friday in Nigeria is reminiscent to exploitation.

    No wonder my friend’s grandmother never liked the idea of Black Friday (not because she is old-school), because regardless of the many good that comes with the day as practiced internationally, here in Nigerian, it is merely a show and a bauble.

    Locally, especially in the Yoruba parlance, one can literally translate it to – “Oja Ale”; meaning night market.

    A well-grounded and cultural person knows that nothing good really comes from Oja Ale.

    For those that are already primed to mould and throw balls of accusations at the writer, did you know that e-commerce websites in Nigeria usually rake in billions of Naira in turnover this period than they normally would in a quarter (three months) of their business year?

    It is certainly a festival of dark, black and shoddy transactions at the expense of the majority of the Nigerian people.

    It is high time the Consumer Protection Council ( CPC ) stepped up its game and live up to its mandate of protecting the people from heartless and unscrupulous bourgeoisies who are wolves in sheep’s clothing.

    Dear Nigerians, please think twice before picking those items from your favourite e-commerce stores; it is sometimes advisable to walk into a physical store to price and pick the items of your choice that you need and not being manipulated online to impulsively pick items that you don’t need, at a very exploitative price.

    Be wise!