Sell in Africa with Klasha

Africa is a growing e-commerce market. With the increase in the digital audience, the market value is expected to be up to $75 billion by 2025. 60% of Africa’s population is aged below 25, and it is forecasted to have the world’s youngest and largest population by 2030.

This means that Africa is primed and ready to join other continents like Europe and Asia as leaders in the e-commerce market space. With this in mind, you can rest easy when introducing your online platform in Africa while ensuring that it has a user-friendly interface, an easy payment gateway, and checkout. 

What are some erroneous facts about selling online in Africa?

In reality, there is a digital divide between Africa and the developed world and also within different regions of Africa. The imbalance in ICT infrastructure between the developed and developing world has existed for decades. This affects Africa as it catches up with the rest of the world in terms of internet use and e-commerce audience. Despite this, certain facts about selling in Africa are untrue. 

• Most Africans still prefer to pay via cash

The COVID-19 pandemic saw an unprecedented increase in e-commerce of global retail trade from 14% to 17% in 2020 when more people adopted online shopping due to the physical movement restrictions. This trend continued to accelerate despite more stores opening up as more businesses created an online presence and more people continued to use online stores to buy the most basic items. The increased use of e-commerce shops naturally increased the use of online payment methods such as payment links, virtual cards and mobile money. 

• Africans do not trust online stores

In the past, with the initial introduction of online shopping, as expected when launching something new, most Africans had reservations about shopping online as it was a new, untested territory. However, with the launch of Jumia Group, founded in 2012 by the Berlin-based company Rocket Internet, more businesses and customers could trade and buy products online without fear. This unleashed more e-commerce platforms and stores, making life easy for Africans. 

As a business hoping to sell into Africa, ensure that your website is trusted and has the necessary checks users look out for before using a store online. These include customer testimonials, data and privacy policies, and a responsive checkout.

How does Klasha help new e-commerce stores sell in Africa?

Klasha understands that Africa is the future, which is why we created Klasha: to ensure Africans get the same frictionless cross-border payment experience that is already available on other continents. Our B2B solutions include:

Klasha Pay - This is an easy-to-integrate and responsive checkout which ensures that your customers can pay in their own African currencies while you get the payment in a currency of your choice such as USD, EUR, CNY and more. 

Klasha Wire—Klasha Wire helps businesses send money to their suppliers in African currencies easily. The suppliers receive the money in their chosen currency within three business days. This method is 100% secure and processed promptly. 

Payment Link - As a business, you can create, customise and share your payment links with your customers with ease. 

Multi-currency accounts: Klasha's multi-currency account allows merchants to create virtual accounts in different currencies, such as USD, ZAR, NGN, and more, from the Klasha dashboard. Each account operates as a regular bank account with a unique bank account number. These accounts accept local and international deposits and facilitate outbound transfers across different currencies to various local and global accounts.

Embedded payments: Build your PSSP on our infrastructure to accept payments from emerging markets in African currencies. We will handle the backend processing for your collections and pay you stable coins or any hard currency you choose.

Selling in Africa is a promising venture as more and more Africans and businesses migrate to online e-commerce platforms to reach their target audience and hit their targets. Do your research to position your brand, and contact our Sales team for help with your payment gateway!