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Kenya’s Kilimall eyes growth in Tanzania and other E. African markets
By our African Marketing Confederation News Team | 2024
E-commerce platform is opening a warehouse in Tanzania and plans further regional growth, followed by expansion elsewhere on the continent.
Despite experiencing significant highs and lows, Africa’s e-commerce marketplace is continuing to evolve rapidly.
Kilimall, the Kenyan-based e-commerce platform, recently announced expansion plans into Tanzania and other parts of East Africa, followed by a 20-year pan-African development strategy.
“The firm is betting on the growing need for convenience to scale its operations in the local market and across the region,” reports The Star, the daily newspaper published in Nairobi.
Kilimall was launched in 2014 and has since become one of Kenya’s leading online shopping sites, along with direct competitor Jumia.
It offers online shopping for products such as mobile phones and tablets, electronics, home and living, TVs and video, computers and accessories, and toys.
Photo by Kindel Media from Pexels
The Star quotes Dickson Ng’ang’a, Kilimall’s Brand and Marketing Senior Supervisor, as saying partnerships with SMEs has been key in growing the firm’s operations and it will pursue other areas like logistics to aid in last mile delivery.
A great opportunity for sellers to ship across the continent
“From last year we started going to the larger East Africa, starting by Tanzania and then by 2044 all over Africa. This will be a great opportunity for our sellers to ship products across the continent,” said Ng’ang’a.
“We have plans in the future to also have our own logistics company so that we can ensure rates are low and favourable to our sellers, which will contribute to product affordability to customers,” he is quoted as saying.
According to Trendtype, the emerging markets consultancy, Kilimall’s plans to open a new warehouse in Tanzania are at an advanced stage and it expects to commence trials this year.
“Kilimall will initially focus on partnering with small Tanzanian vendors to build a customer base in the country. Kilimall plans to expand into also covering logistics and deliveries, which will initially be outsourced under an asset-light model,” Trendtype says.
“The Tanzanian market is much less developed for e-commerce than Kenya and has less developed supply chains.
“But the port of Dar es Salaam is competing with Mombasa to become the leading point of entry for goods into East African markets, and the expansion of Kilimall into Tanzania opens up the possibility of also serving customers in Rwanda, Burundi and Eastern DRC indirectly.”
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