An online shopping mall, Jumia Nigeria, on Thursday kicked off its 6th Black Friday campaign in Lagos to grow the small and medium businesses across the country.
Its Chief Executive Officer, Mrs Juliet Anammah, said at a news conference to flag off the campaign in Lagos, that the campaign would run from Nov. 2 to Nov. 30.
Anammah said the campaign was aimed at revolutionising the shopping habit of Nigerians, promoting convenience and growing small and medium businesses.
She said that the campaign would offer customers up to 90 per cent discount on over four million products.
Anammah said that special deals such as flash sales, treasure hunts and special vouchers would be exclusively available to customers who shop on the Jumia App.
“We expect to see an increase of 50 per cent website traffic as a build up over the last year’s Black Friday.
“The rise of mobile penetration in the country, which stands at 80 per cent, is one of the factors driving our App and website visits; others being our deals.
“Last year, 79 per cent of our customers shopped on mobile phones.
“We are looking to upturn the numbers to 100 per cent at the end of 2018 in order to achieve the country’s goal of becoming a mobile-first country,” she said.
Also, the Chief Commercial Officer, Jumia Nigeria, Mr Shobhit Pandey, said that this year the company would offer customers 80 per cent discounts on men’s and women’s fashion categories and 70 per cent on wristwatches, among others.
“Unlike last year, these deals will only be available every Friday of the week in the month of November,” Pandey said.
He lauded the efforts of Jumia’s partners, such as Binatone, HP, Samsung and Haier for offering the best rates during the campaign.
Also, Mr Prasun Banerjee, the Managing Director, Binatone, said that the partnership with Jumia for Black Friday would help deepen e-commerce penetration in the country.
“Jumia has made the Black Friday sales event a wonderful opportunity for us to offer huge discounts to their customers, thereby enabling us to sell more items than we projected.
“This means that more Nigerians will shop during this period,” Banerjee said.
He also said that the Black Friday campaign had become the most anticipated shopping festival since 2013 in Nigeria.
Commenting, Tolulope George-Yanwah, the Country Manager, Jumia Services, said that logistics had always been the biggest challenge facing most eCommerce companies in the world, especially Nigeria during special sales campaign such as Black Friday.
George-Yanwah said that the company was expecting excellent delivery services during and after the campaign.
According to her, Jumia has identified some logistics challenges during Black Friday, and these have been fixed ahead of Nov. 2.
“We have a projection to process 50 per cent more orders than last year’s Black Friday, and we have ensured to put in place an increased workforce, split across the major cities in the country.
“Our delivery associates have been trained on the best technologies that will aid the discharge of their duties.
“We have also provided a real-time technology that allows our customers to trace the fulfilment process of their orders from when they are shipped from the warehouse till they are delivered.
“This is besides necessary partnership that we have entered with other delivery companies to support our efforts towards ensuring orders are delivered on time, ” the country manager said.
Also, Mrs Olamide Amosu, Head of Engagement Marketing, Jumia Nigeria, said Jumia focussed on encouraging customers to make all their purchases on the mobile app.
Amosu said that this was due to the increasing number of customers shopping on the website via their mobile phones.
She said that using the app would grant easy access to bigger deals and enhance price comparison.
“Shopping on the App consumes less data and helps customers to save money, and make it attractive for use.
“Special deals such as flash sales, treasure hunts and special vouchers will be exclusively available to customers who shop on the Jumia App,” Amosu said.
