Kenya’s AfricaSokoni e-commerce must know that fund is not enough to thrive in Nigeria

Kenya’s ecommerce platform, Africasokoni, has taken another step towards the fulfilment of its vision as it thrusts its foot into Africa’s largest economy, Nigeria.

The B2C startup which has been gunning to bring shopping to the doorsteps of African consumers by building a platform that promotes African businesses and products to the outside world, seems financially ready to see its goal materialise.

From a single startup operating in Kenya, since its launch in 2018, the firm has acquired Nigeria’s groceries e-commerce platform, Bolorims. And will extend its services to Nigerians under a new brand name, Bolosokoni.

While the startup looks promising, it must realise that operating in Nigeria requires expertise to scale in order to thrive as a tech firm within the ecommerce space.

To this end, the firm must need to look away from its heavy financial pillar, and focus on compelling market strategies if it must fare well in a space like Nigeria where some supposedly equally financially fitting startups have crashed in the past.

This becomes important because the US$995,000 funding secured since last year can be quite intoxicating and delusional while measuring company’s prospects.

Putting it in perspective, operating in a space as Kenya, with obviously less aggressive ecommerce players, does not directly translate that a remarkable success might be recorded in any other region.

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Bolosokoni, as a new player, must, therefore, take cue from Konga, Jumia, OLX, ListBuy, KudiGo, Wakanow, Traclist and others to understand the market temperament of Nigerians.

More importantly, Investors, in the startup, should keep an eye on its traction to assess its chances of success as early as possible in order to decide the fate of their investments.

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