Jumia Uganda has celebrated a decade of progress and serving Ugandans with the online platform launched in Uganda in 2012 when e-commerce in the country was virgin and today sells about six million products and delivers to every district in Uganda.
Speaking at a partners and vendors appreciation event held at its new head office at Union House, Bugolobi, Ron Kawarama, the CEO Jumia Uganda credited the company’s continued growth and existence to consumer trust, partnerships, continuous innovation and research.
“Business sustainability is a challenge especially in the highly competitive environment in Uganda. Our success story is thanks to the continued trust that our consumers have in our brand, strong partnerships that we have established with both local and international companies; sellers, logistics partners, investment partners and others. Innovation is necessary for Jumia and we continuously innovate to provide solutions that meet our consumer needs based on feedback and trends.”
As a key investment partner to Jumia, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Innocent Fred Ejolu, the UNDP Partnerships, Innovation and Development Solutions Specialist Focal Point, Accelerator Lab, expressed gratitude to Jumia for the continued efforts to improve the livelihoods of Ugandans across the country and committed to continue supporting Jumia.
“UNDP partnered with Jumia Food in 2022 in the wake of COVID 19 with the aim of connecting informal market vendors with consumers through Jumia’s e-commerce platform. Most of the small businesses, up to 60%, were facing risk of closure. So We quickly worked with Jumia and built a partnership that enabled us to connect 7 markets in Kampala and we’ve learned quite a lot through this process, that we can close the digital divide,” Ejolu said.
He further noted that, “It is something positive and something we can capitalize on and we want to ride on Jumia’s connection with the E-Trading Association to tap into Jumia’s knowledge to help us build a more responsive regulatory environment for e-commerce and potentially look at how we can facilitate trade beyond borders using digital platforms. We are working on supporting the Ministry of Trade with an ecommerce strategy and plan and we think that is a process we can ride on to see if we can create the conditions for what we are building with Jumia to grow”.
Jumia has maintained leadership in the e-commerce space in Uganda as the number one online shopping destination for electronics, home appliances, fashion on Jumia, food and everyday essentials. Jumia reaches all districts in Uganda through a distribution network of over 200 pick up stations supported by over 2000 sales agents and 12 world class logistics partners.
Jumia Food has established partnerships with over 450 restaurants across Kampala and Entebbe to deliver food, gas, water, pharmaceuticals and groceries to consumers, maintaining dominance in the food e-commerce market.