Jumia Marketplace’s parent company, Jumia Group, has many industries under its umbrella, including e-commerce, logistics, security, tourism, and car rental, with a wide range of businesses. Jumia Marketplace is just an e-commerce business module under the Jumia Group. The platform was officially launched in Lagos, the largest port city in Nigeria, in 2012. It is now the largest e-commerce platform in the African market. As of April 2019, Jumia Marketplace has carried out online trading business in 14 African countries, among which Nigeria is the site with the largest traffic of Jumia Marketplace.
On April 12, 2019, Jumia Technologies, the largest e-commerce operator in Africa, known as the African version of “Alibaba”, was officially listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. On the first day of listing, Jumia’s stock price rose by 75.59% to close at US$25.46, with a total market value of US$1.944 billion, equivalent to RMB 13 billion, becoming the first “unicorn company” in Africa to be listed in the United States. This move shocked the majority of cross-border e-commerce people like a thunderbolt in the tepid April day.
The Jumia platform was officially launched in 2012, with a total of 6 sites launched for the first time, namely Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Egypt, Morocco and Cote d’Ivoire. However, in the first five years of the platform’s opening, the Jumia platform was mainly traded by local sellers, and the platform has always been inviting Chinese sellers to settle in. It was not until 2017 that the other five Jumia international sites except South Africa began to open to Chinese sellers, and it was not until 2018 that they were officially fully opened to Chinese sellers. In March 2019, the Jumia platform officially opened the seventh international site to Chinese sellers-Cameroon.
Currently, the seven international sites that Chinese sellers can settle in are: Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, Morocco, Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroon and Ghana. Except for Ghana and Cameroon, the other five sites have launched corresponding overseas warehouses. New sellers on the Jumia platform must start with the Nigerian site. After operating for a period of time and meeting certain requirements, the investment manager will notify the seller to open other sites.
Jumia Entry Requirements
(I) Requirements for Opening a Jumia Store
(1) Business license from mainland China or Hong Kong.
(2) Corporate P-card account.
(3) Activate your store by listing 5 SKUs, and you can officially sell your products after they are approved within 48 hours.
(4) Upload 100 SKUs within one month (only 5 SKUs are required to open a store).
(II) Documents Required for Opening a Jumia Store
(1) Screenshot of the corporate P-card account backend (to confirm the company name).
(2) Scanned copy of the business license.