Francis Dufay, the Managing Director of JUMIA Côte d’Ivoire has called for better infrastructure to foster rapid and sustainable growth of the e-commerce sector in Africa.
He said Côte d’Ivoire “has the basics of the different types of infrastructure” needed for e-commerce and “the challenge remains to improve each of these elements.”
E-commerce is based on four key infrastructures: Internet, logistics, payment and the legal framework.
Although JUMIA managed to transcend the limitations inherent to each type of infrastructure, allowing it to route some 2,000 parcels daily, several points would benefit from qualitative evolutions; including:
Logistics with a need for; better roads, 3PL offering the highest quality of service at competitive prices and a more comprehensive addressing system.
Payment; where the widespread adoption of cashless payment methods such as mobile money for which JUMIA enjoys the expert support of MTN, should be encouraged.
The regulatory and organisational framework could benefit from more education for stakeholders for a better understanding of contractual implications.
And internet, whose penetration estimated at 8 million people in Côte d’Ivoire, remains curtailed.
