Jumia platform introduction and entry guide

Jumia Marketplace is the e-commerce business module of Jumia Group. The group has a wide range of businesses, covering e-commerce, logistics, security, travel car rental and other fields. Since its official launch in 2012 in Lagos, Nigeria’s largest port city, Jumia Marketplace has rapidly grown into the largest e-commerce platform in the African market. As of April 2019, Jumia has launched online transactions in 14 African countries, with Nigeria being its most trafficked site.

On April 12, 2019, Jumia Technologies, known as the “African version of Alibaba”, was officially listed on the New York Stock Exchange. On the first day of listing, Jumia’s share price rose as much as 75.59%, closing at US$25.46, with a total market value of US$1.944 billion (approximately RMB 13 billion), becoming the first African “unicorn company” to be listed in the United States.

The Jumia platform initially launched in 6 countries: Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Egypt, Morocco and Côte d’Ivoire. In the first five years since the platform was launched, transactions were mainly conducted by local sellers. During this period, the platform has been recruiting Chinese sellers by invitation. It was not until 2017 that the remaining five Jumia international sites except South Africa began to open to Chinese sellers, and in 2018, Jumia was officially fully open to Chinese sellers. In March 2019, Jumia opened its seventh international site, Cameroon, to Chinese sellers.

Currently, the seven international sites that Chinese sellers can enter include: Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, Morocco, Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroon and Ghana. In addition to Ghana and Cameroon, the other five sites have launched overseas warehouse services. New sellers must first start operating on the Nigerian site. After meeting certain conditions, they can be assisted by the investment manager to open other sites.

Jumia entry requirements

Requirements for opening a Jumia store

• Requires a business license from mainland China or Hong Kong.
• A corporate PayPal (P card) account is required.
• You must list at least 5 SKUs before you can activate your store, and you can officially sell them after passing the review within 48 hours.
• New stores need to upload 100 SKUs within one month (only 5 SKUs need to be uploaded initially).

Information required to open a Jumia store

• Screenshot of corporate PayPal account backend to confirm company name.
• Scanned copy of enterprise business license.