Digital delivery transforms trade for Africa’s stallholders

Digital delivery transforms trade for Africa’s stallholders

Nancy Auma, a 35-year-old market trader, sits by a large mound of finger-sized silvery fish caught in Lake Victoria. Her stall is in one of the crowded thoroughfares of Mathare, a huge informal settlement in Nairobi, seven hours by bus from Kisumu, the Kenyan lakeside city where she purchases the fish. She must make this journey often — at the hefty cost of Ks3,000 ($26), thanks to rising fuel prices — to buy fresh supplies.

These repeated trips to Kisumu are a waste of time and money, Auma admits, but she lacks the cash flow to buy larger amounts of inventory.

Millions of small kiosk-holders such as her — selling products from rice and sugar to batteries, cleaning products and household supplies — suffer the same costs as they struggle to secure and pay for stock.

But a new wave of start-ups, including Wasoko — which tops the FT’s Africa’s Fastest Growing Companies ranking, compiled with data company Statista — is now trying to help informal shopkeepers by reducing friction in the retail supply chain. Others in the field, broadly defined as digitalising the informal sector, include TradeDepot, Sabi and Twiga — the latter focusing on fresh produce.

Wasoko started in Kenya in 2016