Uhuru Marketplace is a peer-to-peer AI-powered marketplace designed to reduce the barrier to entry for South Africans selling second-hand tools and services to the local market.
The platform provides a professional, easily personalised, AI-embedded marketplace to anyone with a mobile phone and an idea, simplifying the seller journey and amplifying access to a growing second-hand buyer market.
Uhuru is live and actively growing its seller base, currently hosting approximately 1 200 items across seven stores, and is in an active development phase with several significant features in the pipeline.
How the platform works
When a seller uploads an item on Uhuru, they are provided with guided, AI-assisted listing tools. The image-cleaning tool removes cluttered or distracting backgrounds automatically, producing the clean white background that professional product photography delivers without the cost.
The AI description assistant analyses the item and recommends the best way to write the listing to maximise buyer engagement. Every completed listing is scored by an AI quality checker out of 100 with an itemised breakdown of what elements are reducing the score, so sellers can apply the improvements quickly and easily.
On pricing, the AI benchmarking tool compares each listing against comparable items and recommends a price range, guiding sellers towards market value. This suite of tools provides a seller with no marketing background or pricing expertise with access to the kind of intelligence previously available only to professional retailers.
On the buyer side, Uhuru offers a try-on functionality, which is a virtual outfit builder that lets buyers see how any item on the platform would look on them, across the full range of categories including tops, dresses, skirts, swimwear, shoes, socks, and hats.
Buyers can upload images of items from their existing wardrobe and combine them with listings on the platform, effectively asking the question most buyers ask in a physical store: does this new piece work with what I already own? The answer is now available before checkout, not after delivery.
When it comes to fees, Uhuru splits costs 50/50 between buyers and sellers, with no hidden charges.
“You know exactly what you’re paying upfront,” says Shaheen Price, CEO and founder of Uhuru Marketplace.
The platform operates on a freemium model. A free tier gives sellers access to the core marketplace. A subscription tier at R99 per month opens up the full suite of AI tools that include the image cleaner, quality scoring, description guidance, and pricing intelligence. The subscription exists, Price is direct about this, because AI infrastructure costs money to run.
Both buyers and sellers can earn rewards through the platform’s loyalty programme, with more than 60 partner brands confirmed, including Pick n Pay, Checkers, and Nando’s. An AI buyer assistant, built through a personalised preference profile, actively scouts new listings for buyers based on size, colour, style, and budget and alerts them when a match appears, whether they are on the platform or not.