By Our Reporter
The recently released DHL ‘Shop the World’ report reveals that emerging markets offer the highest growth potential for the E-Commerce industry. This is due to the onset of online shopping which is in its infancy in the region.
While on the global scene sites like Amazon have been in operation for over 2 decades, E-Commerce companies in Africa are only now beginning to mark and accelerate their presence in the marketplace.
An example is Africa Internet Holdings (AIH) a company that started most of its operations in the continent only two years ago, but is quickly gaining market share within the country which reiterates the region’s potential. AIH is the mother company to sites like Lamudi, Kaymu, Jumia and Hellofoods.
According to Asteway Desta the Managing Director DHL Express Uganda, although e-commerce still faces challenges in developing countries owing to low penetration as well as unreliable internet services, the existence of online shops in the Uganda market is an indication that consumers are warming up to it.
“Currently Ugandan consumers have access to about 10 online sites all of which began operations within the last 2 years and are witnessing favorable traffic. Albeit still on a small scale, DHL is offering services for some of these sites to be able to deliver products bought by the sites’ customers within Uganda and abroad. With growth as fast as this, it is evident we do not have to wait for 2000 years for the e-commerce trend to catch up in Uganda,