Africa eCommerce August 11, 2020

West Africa eCommerce business is like a boon in 2020

AFRICA’S BOOMING E-COMMERCE IN 2020

Africa Ecommerce

The fate of e-commerce is both thrilling and overwhelming for industry players in Africa especially for West Africa market, depending upon the fact that they are so responsive to the dynamic idea of the industry in Africa. The e-commerce market is developing quickly and there are changes that will assist organizations with development.

It is significant for retailers to remember that digitization is playing a huge role in customers purchasing choices and thinking. A noteworthy level of offline customers utilizes their cell phones in- store to look into products and their reviews. Customers thoroughly research the items online before making it into the real store and making purchase.

Shopping on the web is unquestionably more advantageous and speedier. There are more deals, no queues, and there is huge selection to choose from. Physical retail outlets will keep on contracting except if customers have fine reason to visit stores physically. E-commerce players require much higher levels of mainstream consumer adoption and retention to build viable businesses.

1. Africa eCommerce Business Insights :

Africa has a billion-dollar IPO for e-commerce company and smartphone penetration is growing, While the quantity of smart phone users is expanding year-on-year, its infiltration is still irrelevant. Web connectivity and the accessibility of reasonably priced smart phones keep on driving an expanding rise of online shopping. The government efforts to grow the reach of the internet through the different mobile service providers will only expand the online shopping.

2. West Africa Countries is putting much into eCommerce :

Jumia reported the rise in number of Nigerian consumers on the platform who shopped on their mobile devices via mobile web or Jumia mobile App as compared to previous years. Jumia has also reported a spike in both customer and seller interest as demand for groceries and essentials grew four-fold in the first quarter compared to last year. In Morocco and Tunisia, sales have also doubled at different times over the last month. Customers using their voice to browse and shop online is supposedly increasing in different markets of the world. The smart speaker owners are increasingly making their purchases with their voice using ALEXA or Google Home products.

Whereas in Nigeria this trend is not attracting the customers yet but the number of consumers orally describing the products they want to buy rather than browsing about the product has increased, and this is becoming a trend. It cannot be denied that other countries are expanding in this aspect is a major reason to catch up on this and e-commerce giants in Nigeria should figure out ways to integrate voice commerce in their platforms. With the rise in number of visitors on most e-commerce websites, numerous advertisers are looking for smart approaches to reach their intended interest group, and utilizing e-commerce platforms with reach over the globe will convey on such objective. Jumia recently reported that its platform will be accessible to organizations to advertise their products and services. While, infrastructure difficulties like logistics, rented warehouses, pick and drop stations for customers all this will form a trend in time. E-commerce platforms will plan to offer their services to third parties to help curb infrastructure challenges. Innovation, technology, partnership and cooperation will help overcome major logistics challenges to remain profitable and viable. Jumia is going beyond delivering and will open its door to general public for logistics services which will mark Jumia to offer its logistics and delivery services to general public other than the shoppers of its platform.

3. Customer’s Behavior :

Customer behavior is changing rapidly and their interest in online shopping is driving change in Africa eCommerce industry at a faster pace the companies like Jumia are working rigorously to enhance the user experience to increase customer retention and get more customers onboard simultaneously. Technology and innovation are the primary factors that will help companies across the globe to overcome the upcoming challenges and will direct the future growth of the e-commerce industry.

Logix platform Benefits :

LogixGRID is a technology-driven software provider which can help e-commerce companies across the globe to achieve growth and increase customer experience at the same time helping to stay a step ahead of the competitors and stay on the competitive grounds.

It comes up with e-commerce and carrier integrations to enhance your business experience. Our major eCommerce business partners are Shopify, Magento, opencart, and woo commerce. We also have more than 20+ major carrier partners like FedEx, Aramex, DHL, and UPS.

August 1, 2020

Current Demand and implementation of Warehouse Automation

WAREHOUSE AUTOMATION AFTER COVID-19

Warehouse Automation

Warehouse automation is the process of automating the movement of inventory into, within, and out of warehouses to customers with minimal human assistance. As part of an warehouse automation project, a business can eliminate labor-intensive duties that involve repetitive physical work and manual data entry and analysis. The push to warehouse automation and distribution centers is on ascend as more organizations search for ways to manage social distancing rules, remote workforce and other new difficulties.

A year that brought with it a whirlwind of uncertainty has likewise put a greater focus on the utilization of automation in warehouses around the world due to rising eCommerce transactions.

1. The technology valuation process :

While evaluating warehouse automation frameworks and solutions, organizations have some reasonable plans at the top of the priority list. Most need great durability and up-time, Others cautiously survey total expense of possession, return on investment (ROI) and maintenance costs, with extra contemplation including price tag, parts accessibility, risk of obsolescence and integration /compatibility with existing systems.

2. Dealing with disturbance :

Considering the coronavirus outbreak, organizations expect to change their plans for buying warehouse solutions, while some are uncertain of their way ahead though a few organizations despite everything intend to finish on their forthcoming buys, obviously Covid-19 has made a situation of uncertainty.

3. Rise in Order fulfillment trend :

Currently, order fulfillment operations are taken care of generally or totally manually, a number that tumbled from earlier. As far as to order fulfillment exercises, most organizations use warehousing and storage; full and mixed pallet load fulfillment; and individual pick, pack and ship wholesale distribution. Organizations presently need to execute or improve current individual pick, pack and ship e-commerce business fulfillment activities, while some are generally keen on upgrading their order customization, repacking and value-added services.

4. The quest for more data :

Inside the warehouse, the well-known data collection innovations by far are bar code scanners and mobile/wireless technologies. RF terminal technologies and pick-or put-to-light picking utilization remain modestly popular. Within the upcoming years, organizations intend to execute pick-or put-to-light technology. RFID is likewise expanding as a popular choice. Voice-directed picking technology and heads up display & vision innovations are additionally working their way into more warehouses. Organizations intend to implement mobile and wireless innovations.

For warehouses, transportation management systems (TMS) saw the greatest increment in current use. Warehouse management systems (WMS) still remain the most mainstream software choice. More organizations are currently planning to implement WMS and need to add a labor management system (LMS) and TMS. At present, numerous organizations utilize an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and are expanding quickly. The utilization of order management systems (OMS) additionally observed a critical raise. Other well-known supply chain management systems incorporate customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain planning (SCP) and distributed order management (DOM) are also in demand.

Facts to Know

1. Global e-Commerce sales have grown at a CAGR of 20% over the last decade, reaching ~$3.5 trillion worldwide in 2019 and expected to grow to ~$7.5 trillion by 2026. The share of online retail sales has gone from ~2% of the total to ~13% and is further expected to reach ~22% by 2026. Existing fully automated systems can reduce warehouse-related labor costs by up to 65% and logistics-related spatial use by up to 60% at the same time as it increases the maximum output capacity.

2. The adoption of technology is by no means uniform. While one-hour delivery is available when buying online in some parts of the U.S. and Europe, the average promised delivery time in Brazil is nine days. JD.com had a record-breaking Singles Day in 2019, with transaction volume exceeding CNY204 bn (US$29 bn), up by 27.9% on the previous year. Logistics played an important role, with 90% of areas achieving same-or next day delivery and a 108% YOY increase in the number of orders fulfilled by automated warehouses.

3. Amazon Robotics automates the company’s fulfillment centers using more than 200,000 autonomous mobile robots, up more than 600% from 30,000 at the end of 2015. Last year, DHL announced an investment of $300 million to modernize 60% of its warehouses in North America with IoT and autonomous robots. The company also committed deployment of 1,000 LocusBots for delivery fulfillment. The funds are earmarked to bring emerging technology to 350 of DHL Supply Chain’s 430 operating sites.

4. Warehouse labor shortages are also an issue with peak labor demands occurring around major shopping holidays viz. Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Amazon Prime Day, Thanksgiving Day and Singles Day. Warehouses have to hire temporary labor around these peak times to meet the customer delivery schedules. Supply chain robotics company Cainiao has installed 700 robots at China’s largest robot-run warehouse to process orders on Singles Day.

Logix platform Benefits :

With LogixGRID’S smart logistics solutions companies can easily choose from a vast range of supply chain management solutions to automate their warehousing. Multi integration and easy functionality make the solution renowned globally.

It comes up with e-commerce and carrier integrations to enhance your business experience. Our major eCommerce business partners are Shopify, Magento, opencart, and woo commerce. We also have more than 20+ major carrier partners like FedEx, Aramex, DHL, and UPS.

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