The partnership combines Zipline’s automated, on-demand delivery system with Jumia’s distribution network, which lets customers in more isolated regions purchase and receive electronics, cosmetics, and other products. The companies similarly plan to expand the effort into Nigeria and Ivory Coast.
Zipline has also worked with the Rwandan Ministry of Health to deliver on-demand blood to rural health facilities.
Since the first blood delivery in 2016, Zipline has scaled nationwide and now delivers specialised blood components and medicines to more than 350 locations in the East African nation, handling upwards of three-quarters of blood distribution outside of the capital, Kigali.
Previously in April 2022, Jumia partnered with multinational global shipping company UPS to grow its reach on the African continent.
Through the strategic partnership, UPS clients can pickup or drop off packages to be sent across the globe at any of Jumia’s stations in Nigeria, Kenya, or Morocco but the US-based company plans to expand the service to additional African markets, including Ghana, Ivory Coast, Algeria, Senegal, Tunisia, Uganda, and South Africa.
During the last two years, Jumia has felt the side effects that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to its business and to ecommerce in the countries where it operates, and this happened for multiple reasons. The absence of universal lockdown policies in the countries it serves meant that consumers were not driven towards ecommerce to the same extent as they were in other parts of the world. On the other hand, localised lockdowns caused significant disruption to the domestic supply and logistics infrastructure.
In the early months of the pandemic, the company witnessed a steady growth in selected categories across its platform. Jumia offers consumers a wide range of goods and services, but it observed a shift to essentials and everyday products and services, including fast-moving consumer goods product categories, groceries, home appliances, home and living products, bills payments and airtime, and digital goods in general.
To ensure close proximity to its consumers, Jumia has also extended its network of pick-up stations (PUS) across all markets, and it went from a few hundred to more than 1.600 since the beginning of the pandemic. PUS are key to improving convenience since their customers can easily pick up orders on their way to or back from the office. This push is strategic for the company, making it more relevant and bringing it much closer to its end users. It is also a formidable way of collecting feedback and ‘embodying’ the platform. This way, it become more visible online, but also offline.
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