News From Africa

Social Commerce Continues to Grow in Africa.

A recent study by Caribou Data and the Partnership for Finance in a Digital Africa found that 92% of small and medium enterprises in Kenya use social commerce to carry out their businesses. Social commerce platforms are becoming increasingly popular around the continent. A 2019 GeoPoll survey found that Facebook and Instagram ranked ahead of many ecommerce marketplaces in a list of the most used online shopping platforms in the continent. Today, the same survey would show TikTok in poll position.

The high adoption of social media in Africa, which is enabled by increasing internet connectivity, has led to the rise of this type of ecommerce in the continent during the COVID pandemic, whereby content sharing, messaging, and payment come together. As a recent Paystack presentation showed, all an entrepreneur needs now is an attractive product, a well-crafted announcement for use on social media, a payment system, and a delivery service. Mobile technology is a key driver of social commerce in Africa, as the mobile phone is by far the most popular way to access the internet and customers tend to use mobile money to pay for goods and services in social commerce transactions.

Meanwhile in the USA, Walmart recently became the first retailer to test Twitter’s live stream shopping platform. This comes on the heels of the retailer’s live stream shopping experiments with TikTok and YouTube.