Wasoko has made its way into the Southern part of Africa with Zambia being the pioneer country to host this e-commerce tech giant. The African e-commerce company leveraging innovative technology to transform the informal retail supply chain plans to pump over $1 million in its first year of operations. This is to support local Zambian businesses and communities to get more essential goods for less through the power of e-commerce.
Zambia is a landlocked country of rocky terrain with a population of over 20 thousand people. Its GDP stood at $65 billion by the end of 2022. Its openness to e-commerce allowed the launching of Wasoko’s 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 formation of Lusaka as a central hub is also part of Wasoko’s company-wide pivot to a hub and bespoke logistics network to drive stronger operational efficiency and significantly boost its capacity for faster regional expansions.
Since launching in 2016, Wasoko has pioneered the development of innovative technology to address the supply chain inadequacies faced by millions of local shop owners in Africa’s informal retail sector. Currently, the industry across Africa is worth over $600 billion while in Zambia specifically, over 70% of households purchase their food from informal vendors. Despite its importance, the sector still remains highly fragmented and inefficient with local shops facing several major challenges, including frequent stock-outs, limited access to capital, and difficulty receiving goods from suppliers.
Wasoko’s mobile app is aimed at bridging that gap that exists in this sector. With this app, shop owners can easily purchase goods from manufacturers and distributors at competitive prices based on supply and demand. They can also receive real-time tracking data on sales, business insights, and market trends. The platform has also built an end-to-end logistics process across areas including procurement, distribution, financing, and technology, enabling Wasoko to deliver best-in-class fulfillment and merchant engagement rates.
On the launch in Lusaka – Zambia, Wasoko’s founder and Global CEO, Daniel Yu, said: “As we drive ahead with the next phase of our growth journey, it’s vital that the operating environments of our future markets are conducive to our ambitions and Zambia provides exactly this.”
With high smartphone usage and a pro-business government administration keen on expanding the country’s digital economy, Zambia is an ideal environment to launch Wasoko’s model in East Africa. “We’re confident that our new launch will not only play a huge role in accelerating our existing progress across the continent but also significantly strengthen the purchasing power of everyday citizens in Zambia and enhance their livelihoods in the process.”
Besides the latest expansion, Wasoko will also be doubling its service radius across all of its existing locations in Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Uganda.
So far, it has amassed a huge network of over 200,000 informal retailers and delivered more than 5 million orders to date in these areas. This helped the company raise a $125 million Series B round in 2022, making it the largest venture financing round ever raised for a non-fintech startup in Africa.
