Reflect Ventures agrees with Emeka Ajene that "Traditional retailers not only are the cornerstones of?#African?economies today but will also constitute the core of the region’s future commercial landscape." This is why we have invested in four different companies that provide supply chain services to neighborhood stores. Emeka has plenty of other insightful things to say. Check out his posts on LinkedIn.
Traditional/informal retail dominates commerce across the African continent—at least outside of South Africa—and will continue to do so for the next decade, per this new report from Boston Consulting Group (BCG). BCG partners Lisa Ivers, Stefano Niavas, Chris Mitchell, and Zineb Sqalli write: "Despite the advance of supermarkets, convenience stores, and other modern formats, African consumers on average continue to buy more than 70% of their food, beverages, and personal care products from the continent’s more than 2.5 million small, independent shops... Traditional retailers not only are the cornerstones of #African economies today but will also constitute the core of the region’s future commercial landscape." Accordingly, 'digitizing' or offering digital solutions for the sector is quite a sizeable opportunity, and it's part of why investor cash has flooded into the sector in recent times. In just the last twelve months, #startups digitizing aspects of informal retail on the continent like Wasoko, TradeDepot, MaxAB, Twiga Foods, Capiter, MarketForce, Sabi, Alerzo, Omnibiz Africa, SimpleMarket Inc. (BetaStore.co), Chari.co - YC S21 - Ecom and Fintech apps for retailers in French-speaking Africa, and several others have cumulatively raised almost half a billion dollars in #venturecapital. While much attention has been paid to #Africa's fintech opportunity—and rightfully so—lesser appreciated is the ongoing digital transformation of the continent's informal retail sector. #internationalbusiness?#emergingmarkets #innovation
