JUMIA, Nigeria’s number one online retailer, celebrates its one year anniversary. In June 2012, JUMIA started the largest e-commerce Web site in the country.
Twelve months later, the company has served over half a million customers – changing the way people shop in Nigeria. This has made JUMIA the fourth most visited Nigerian Web site.
Recently, JUMIA secured a further $35-million in funding from MILLICOM. This funding comes in addition to recent investments from J.P. Morgan and Summit Partners.
The funding, which represents the largest investment in a Nigerian e-commerce start-up, allows JUMIA to continue its rapid growth and serve even more customers across Nigeria.
JUMIA announced its move to a new 8 000 square metre warehouse in Lagos which will house 500 employees and create the largest e-commerce campus in West Africa.
Co-founder Raphael Afaedor says: “Almost a year ago, we started with three employees building up an ecommerce platform in Nigeria. Now, we have more than 500 employees and offer Nigerian’s youth great opportunities to work in one of the leading ecommerce companies in Africa.
“JUMIA delivers the widest range of products in the country and our new warehouse allows us to even grow further. We focus every day on delivering a fantastic shopping experience for our customers – fast, secure and stress-free.”
JUMIA’s anniversary will be celebrated with a first anniversary e-commerce conference, various fashion events, special discounts, new partnerships, Web site changes and the education campaign “delivering smiles”.
Co-founder Tunde Kehinde says: “After this tremendous one year run we want to say thank you to our employees, customers, partners and all Nigerians. Since our creation we have supported education programmes to empower children and we want to use this anniversary to give back to society.”
For their first anniversary JUMIA carries out two activities themed “delivering smiles”. In June, JUMIA will donate one book to a child in partner schools for every book bought on JUMIA. In addition, JUMIA will visit schools with the “1 Child 1 Book” foundation and the CSR co-sponsor DHL to give out books to less privileged pupils.
JUMIA will team up with ACE Africa Charity and sell its ACE wrist bands. All returns will go to the charity. JUMIA will also promote ACE to their half a million social media followers.
Additionally, JUMIA has announced its partnership with Mastercard, using MasterCard’s Internet Gateway Service to make credit card payments safer and easier.
The company announced further exclusive partnerships with Dell, Intel and Nokia, offering special prices and exclusive products.