Wasoko Expands African B2B eCommerce Marketplace Into Zambia

B2B marketplace Wasoko has moved into Zambia as part of a broader expansion in Africa.

“Launching its central hub in Lusaka, Wasoko’s operations will enable small retailers across the city to access an affordable range of products for same-day delivery and working capital financing solely through the convenience of a mobile app,” the company said in a Thursday (May 11) news release provided to PYMNTS.

Wasoko founder and CEO Daniel Yu said in the release the company chose Zambia — where it will invest $1 million — for its “high smartphone usage and a pro-business government administration keen on expanding the country’s digital economy.”

Aside from its efforts in Zambia, the company is doubling its service radius in the countries where it already does business: Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda, where it has a network of more than 200,000 informal retailers and delivered over 5 million orders, according to the release.

Founded in 2016, Wasko’s platform lets these retailers order products through SMS or its mobile app for same-day delivery to their stores, per the release.

The informal retail space is a $600 billion business, the company said in the release, with 70% of households in Zambia buying food from these merchants.

“But despite its importance, the sector still remains highly fragmented and inefficient with local shops facing a number of major challenges, including frequent stockouts, limited access to capital and difficulty receiving goods from suppliers,” the company said in the release.

Yu told PYMNTS last year that the prevalence of cash in the markets where Wasoko does business has been an advantage.

The company is one of the digital sales and procurement platforms in Africa helping companies transform the way they do business.

“Increasingly, these platforms are not just middlemen connecting buyers to sellers; they find themselves ideally placed to provide African businesses with payment and credit services,” PYMNTS reported in November.

Among them is restaurant procurement platform Vendease, whose CEO and co-founder, Tunde Kara, told PYMNTS that adding payment services became necessary after the company grew to a certain size.

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