New Report Reveals that over 70% of African e-commerce startups are unprofitable

Nigeria leads Africa’s e-commerce space as the number of e-commerce startups in Africa hits 264. The latest report released by Disrupt Africa was entitled  “Afri-Shopping: Exploring the African E-commerce Startup Ecosystem Report 2017.” It showed that e-commerce faces various challenges. The major challenges include inadequate funding, logistic challenges and lack of trust.

Moreover, the report showed that only less than 30% of e-commerce startups in Arica that were surveyed are profitable. Currently, Nigeria takes 40% of Africa’s e-commerce space. South Africa closely follows then Kenya.

According to Tom Jackson, the co-founder of Disrupt Africa, Nigeria will soon take the steps of the western countries. He also said that the entrepreneurs in Nigeria significantly contribute to the success of Nigeria’s e-commerce,

Speaking to another co-founder of Disrupt Africa, Gabriella Mulligan, he said that South Africa and Kenya have copied what Nigeria does. Furthermore, Gabriella Mulligan said that the fact that Nigeria dominates Africa’s e-commerce from the report shows that entrepreneurs play a major role for the success. The report analyzed 12 sub-sectors of e-commerce.