There has been a huge growth in the adoption of e-commerce by small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Nigeria and across Africa over the last decade. This was further accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic as businesses realized that digitalization was no longer a luxury, but a core part of their strategy to thrive in the 21st century. While the adoption of e-commerce by Nigerian businesses and consumers portends a promising future for Africa’s most populous Nation, it is not yet El Dorado.
Many business owners have complained that after making the huge investments in digitalizing their customer touch points, they have struggled to drive adoption and have not seen enough patronage to justify their investments in these projects. Creating online visibility, adoption and patronage via digital channels could cost a fortune in marketing budget which most small businesses cannot afford in this tough economic environment.
By the time a customer visits the website of a company or downloads their mobile APP, a lot has been spent to win that customer, so it is very important that the visit is converted to a purchase transaction. Hence, achieving a high conversion rate and avoiding drop offs at checkout is very critical to success. Many customers have a smooth journey while shopping online, up until they get to the checkout page. Having a seamless checkout and payment experience can significantly improve the sales, revenue and return on investment for digital adopting businesses.
There is also a problem of lack of trust in digital payment solutions that makes some customers prefer cash on delivery to online payment options. This general lack of trust in digital payments impedes many businesses since they'll only make a sale when cash changes hands physically. In such cases, growth is very expensive since it often requires more staff and physical outlets to handle these exchanges
Being the pioneer and leading e-commerce marketplace in Africa, Jumia faced and surmounted these and many more problems to sustain its growth over the years. It was in a bid to solve the payment experience issues which were not being adequately addressed by incumbent payment service providers that Jumia launched JumiaPay in 2017. Since then, JumiaPay has eliminated most of the frictions and failure points in the payment flow to offer consumers the most secure and user-friendly digital payment experience. Through JumiaPay, checkout success rate, conversion rate, online payment penetration rate on Jumia have improved while fraud incidents have reduced ahead of peers in the market. Consumers have grown to love and trust payments with JumiaPay whenever they shop on Jumia thus contributing immensely to the sustained growth and success of Africa’s leading e-commerce platform.
Expanding the scope of JumiaPay’s services
As JumiaPay usage grew, we realised that many of our customers had other products and services they wanted to pay for with the same simplicity they enjoyed on Jumia's e-commerce platform. Evidently, there was an opportunity for us to bridge the gap between consumers and growing Nigerian businesses that lacked a comprehensive and reliable payment solution.
In response, we pursued a license as a Payments Solution Service Provider (PSSP), which we received from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in April 2022. We are delighted about the vote of confidence from the CBN. In the same spirit, we are grateful for the customers who trusted us over the years to handle their payments within our ecosystem, allowing us to increase our proficiency and reputation as a trusted and best in class payment solution service provider.
With our PSSP license, we are now positioned to extend the same secure, easy, and seamless payment experience enjoyed by millions of consumers on Jumia to other businesses across Nigeria. In addition, we shall leverage Jumia’s ecosystem to provide businesses with free visibility, advertisement, consumer promotion and logistics services to accelerate their business growth.
VIDEO: Meet Isaac Emordi, a JumiaPay consumer in Nigeria
How will JumiaPay boost the growth of Nigerian businesses?
Businesses that partner with JumiaPay will benefit from features made specifically for the seller and those that improve the customer experience. For example:
Variety of payment methods: Acceptance of local and international cards, Mobile money, Bank transfer and other payment methods. Consequently, business shall spend less time and money connecting these options to their platforms. This also means they'll get more revenue and retain customers who would have left if these options weren’t available.
Fast checkout: JumiaPay supports tokenisation of payment methods which makes the payment process faster, seamless, and easy for consumers thus increasing checkout success. Customers do not need to go through the painful process of inputting their card details each time they have to make a payment.
Recurring payments: With our recurring payment feature, businesses can obtain one-time authorisation from their customers to process subsequent payments. This is very useful for subscription-based services, standing instructions, loan repayments and other recurring transactions. It simplifies the process for the customers and increases the chances of a business having a repeat customer.
Payment Link: This feature works very well for businesses that sell on social media platforms. Businesses can generate and send payment links to their customers for seamless payment collection.
Reporting and Analytics: Business owners can massively benefit from our reporting and analytics tools which help them keep track of their inflows. They'll gain valuable insight into consumer behavior, noticing patterns showing how different payment methods are used.
State of the art Fraud management technology: Our platform boasts of state-of-the-art fraud detection technology, which will help limit the risk posed to businesses as they receive payments digitally. We can also automatically preempt suspicious transactions and decline them based on risk scoring.
JumiaPay consumers in Lagos, Nigeria
Free visibility, advertisement, consumer promotion and logistics services
In addition to the above, we will help businesses that partner with JumiaPay solve the problem of visibility and sales generation by leveraging the Jumia ecosystem to promote their businesses to millions of digitally active and commercially viable online consumers on Jumia. The package could include free listing on the JumiaPay consumer APP, free promotional messages to millions of consumers, free advert placements, free or discounted shipping services, JumiaPay sponsored consumer discounts and various exclusive incentives aimed at helping businesses grow and succeed in the digital space. Businesses that partner with JumiaPay would have less worries about creating online visibility, driving adoption and sales on their digital channels.
At JumiaPay, we go beyond facilitating the movement of funds from one party to another. We see ourselves as the prime partner for small and medium sized enterprises on their journey to growth, profitability, and success. Accordingly, we shall continue to leverage the power of the Jumia ecosystem to accelerate the growth of JumiaPay partners across Nigeria.
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Adedamola Giwa Managing Director of JumiaPay, Nigeria
Adedamola Giwa is the Managing Director of JumiaPay Nigeria. He has over 17 years in business leadership, strategy, and innovation across the banking and fintech sectors of the economy before joining JumiaPay. Before joining Jumia, he was the Group Head of Verve Digital and New Business, where he was in charge of Verve’s digitalisation, innovation, and new business strategy across Africa. He also oversaw the company’s pan-Africa expansion.
Adedamola previously served as the Head of Acquiring and eBusiness Service Management for Stanbic IBTC Bank (a member of Standard Bank’s Digital Banking group). He oversaw teams in the Bank’s Retail Banking, Stockbroking, and Investment Banking divisions in project management, service management, and business operations.
Giwa holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Ilorin and an MBA from Obafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria. He is a Fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Chartered Accountants and the Nigerian Chartered Institute of Bankers.