Jumia Kenya is an online ecommerce website that sells and ships products to all parts of Kenya. More Kenyans are getting online every day. Mobile penetrations is at its highest level in the country. In fact, according to an article in the ‘Standard Digital’, high smartphone adoption among Kenyan youth has pushed internet penetration higher in Kenya compare to other countries in Africa.

According to this very article, Jumia Kenya has contributed to the high number smartphone penetration by availing cheap smartphones in Kenya. There are more people on the internet in Kenya than anywhere else in Africa. This is partly due to a large youth population that is technology savvy and an economy that is growing steadily.

This Internet penetration is changing the way Kenyans are shopping. With over 250000 mobile phones sold by Jumia Kenya alone in 2017, more people are finding it easier to shop on-line unlike the traditional way of finding a physical shop.

Off course, this has the following advantages,

• Orders can be placed at any place and at any time.
• Orders are shipped to your doorsteps upon payment of a small shipping fee.
• Buyers can compare prices with other stores; this ensures that you get the best deal possible.
• Wrong or defective items can be returned and replaced.
• You are guaranteed quality items. Jumia Kenya only allows professional vendors to sell on its platform.
• With express shipping, items arrive fast.

History of Jumia Kenya

Jumia, Kenya’s no. 1 online retailer opened its doors in May 2013. Its aim and vision was to become the one-stop shop for retail in Kenya with implementation of best practices both online and offline.

Initially it begun with only 3 employees and today, boasts of about 1000 employees working smart to ensure that customers get value for money.

It is important to note that Jumia Kenya is a subsidiary of Jumia whose headquarters are in Nigeria. It is also present in countries such as Egypt, Morocco among others.

Today it boasts of being the largest online retail store in Kenya, second only to none. In Kenya it is headquartered in Westlands Nairobi

How does Jumia Kenya work?

Unknown to many, Jumia does not sell its own products. You may have noticed that apart from the electronics, clothing, home accessories and other products on the website, they are also into travel, food and even flights.

How is this even possible?

This online retail store depends on thousands of vendors who sell on the platform. The vendors are the actual owners of the products listed on the website. Jumia Kenya only offers a platform to sell the products. That is why it is not uncommon to find the same product listed with different prices! This simply points to the fact that different vendors list the same product.

Learn how to become a vendor here.

Currently there are thousands of vendors selling millions of products on the Jumia.

Before we get deeper into how Jumia works, let us first take you through the steps on how to join begin shopping.

How to join Jumia Kenya and Make your first Order.

Go to https://www.jumia.co.ke/customer/account/create/ . The page looks this way.

Fill in your details as indicated, your name, phone number, e-mail address and your preferred password. You may need to check whether you want to receive Jumia Newsletter on deals available. If you creating the account on your personal PC, you may also want your password remembered.

Once you satisfied that your details are fine, hit the submit button.

Now you are ready to start shopping! You will be taken to a page that looks this way.

On the left, you can access likes to categories within the website. Within the website, are links to hundreds of products.

On the top left, you can see you name, from the drop menu, you can access your account, make an order, check your saved orders and even track your orders!

Just that way, and you are just seconds away from making you first order!

On your smartphone, you can easily access the website via the Jumia App downloadable from the google playstore.

To make your first order, browse the categories you like. Let us say you want to buy a phone a Infinix HOT 6 Pro x608 – [32GB + 3GB RAM] – 6.0″ – Fingerprint – 4000mAh Battery – 4G LTE – Face ID – Gold.

Now click on the link or the image of the desired phone. You will be taken to a page with more specifications about the phone.

Here you are able to read more specifications about the phone. This very important since you do not want to order a product with the wrong specifications. You can also read reviews from other buyers and see the seller score that is the vendor selling the product. If you hover on the image of the product, it is enlarged making for better decision making.

If you are satisfied, hit the buy button. However before you do that, you will notice that there are more sellers selling the same product below the page. It would be prudent to go through this list of others sellers. There is a likelihood of one selling at cheaper price. Moreover, the seller score could be high than the one you intend to buy from.

If you get such, just repeat the procedures above and once you like what you see, hit the ‘buy’ button. This takes you here.

From here, you can choose to go directly to the cart for checkout or continue shopping to add more products to your cart.

Time to grab a cup of coffee….

If you are happy, let us proceed. Now if you hit the ‘view cart and checkout’ button, you are take here.

Here you can confirm the quantity of items in your cart, the unit price, the subtotal and the total price with may include V.A.T. If you are happy, hit the ‘proceed to checkout’ button. We find ourselves here.

You will notice that all the other information you submitted when signing up is present except the delivery address. Fill this up save and continue to go to item number two. Remember to select your city from the drop menu too.

Choose whether to have you item delivered to your doorstep or to collect it at your preferred pickup station. If you opt to have delivered at your home or office, a shipping fee is invoiced. The amount depend on the size of the item and the shipping distance. You can too opt to collect from a pickup station; however, such a station may not be available in the city you initially selected. If you are lucky to have one nearby, you can opt for that option. In most cases, this comes at no more cost on you. If you have decided on which to go with, hit ‘proceed to next step’ button.

Here you choose the payment method. This is either by Mpesa on Delivery, Cash on Delivery or online using secure payment options such as Mpesa, EassyPay, Airtel Money or Credit or Debit Card.

If you have a voucher, you may enter it into. Once you are done and happy, hit the confirm order button.

That is it. You will receive an e-mail confirming that your order has been confirmed and its fulfilment is in progress. You can sit down relaxed awaiting for delivery of your item. Once it has been fulfilled and its shipping is in progress, you will receive an sms informing you of the intended delivery and a call from the staff delivering the item.

Congratulations! You just made your first order and future does seem gloomy!

One more thing.

As I begun saying, Jumia Kenya does not own a physical store. It depends on thousands of sellers called vendors to drive its business. You too can take advantage of this to sign up as a vendor and take advantage of the high volume of traffic that come to Jumia Kenya Website.

Conclusion

With a young population that is always online, Kenya’s online shopping prospects are huge. This is what Jumia Kenya is tapping into. Gone are days when online shopping was perceived to be risky.  Jumia Kenya makes the experience even better.

There over 15 million active users on Jumia Kenya. You cannot afford not to be part of the action. The future of shopping is definitely online.

When the world moves, move with it.

Happy online shopping!