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IT’S NOT ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL

Drilling down into this consumer trends focus, Infotrack’s Angela Ambitho touched on the growing and vibrant e-commerce ecosystem in regions such as East Africa, and the positive growth trajectory which had been accelerated by increased internet usage and the impact of Covid-19.

“We have a very vibrant e-commerce sector but also a very vibrant offline retail sector,” she noted, adding that 25% of retail trade was moving towards e-commerce and was expected to increase to about 30%-40% in Kenya by 2024. Kenya’s online market “is expected to grow to US$2-billion in the next two years, largely driven by the youth population,” said Ambitho.

However, with many shoppers – like herself – favouring a mixture of online and offline options, the balancing act for retailers was a delicate one. “A young person in the office asked me why I still waste my time going to the supermarket,” related Ambitho, who said she liked to pick out her own groceries and meat, unlike her 18-year-old son who recently “spent about US$500 buying items online from all over the globe and then got a logistics company to gather all those things and deliver them here”.

The paradigm shift caused by Covid cannot be overestimated, stressed Ambitho. She noted that the past two years had been a lesson to retailers – from big stores to small kiosk owners using boda men (motorcycle taxies in East Africa) for their deliveries – that they had to integrate digital into their way of connecting and servicing the consumer.

LOOK, LISTEN AND DO

Talking specifically from the perspective of the growing digital healthcare space, Innovarx CEO Badjie echoed how future success hinged on meeting consumer needs. “There is a choice revolution playing out around the world. Consumers are choosing how they [want] their experience to be,” he said, adding that African retailers must either adapt or die.

In the healthcare sector, Badjie added that moving into an online space had the potential to democratise wellness – a mindset shift that was already in play globally and around which companies should position themselves. Innovarx offers not only a delivery service for healthcare products and mobile point-of-care diagnostic testing, but also a cloudbased electronic health-record management system.

Whether in the evolving healthcare space or in the transitional space between offline retail stores and online offerings, retailers like Konga’s Dave Omoregie were firm in their belief that the interaction between physical and digital channels created key opportunities in the omni-channel experience. For some, like Grocery Bazaar founder Ejeh, the inner workings of an omni-channel business model were still unfolding, but the potential for online was increasingly attractive.

“Any person with a brick-and-mortar store needs to consider how to integrate them,” said Ejeh. “If you have a [physical] store you can leverage that for trust. That works for someone like me. In the next 10 years we should have 20%-30% of our sales from the online channel, but it depends on how the cost structure plays

›Many shoppers favour a mix of online and offline options

out. Right now, the biggest problem is to get a model that makes it work.”

Ultimately, there was accord between participants at the conference that the face of African retail was evolving, and that online shopping and digital connections were a force to be reckoned with. Any business, large or small, needed an integrated strategy, said Lagos Business School marketing faculty’s Vanessa Burgal. “We see that customers – our consumers – are really online today… we talk about the omni-channel consumer. But it’s not just about shopping online, they are connected digitally.”

For marketers and modern retailers, the opportunity to connect with consumers via digital channels is perhaps as enticing as the evolution of retail channels. After all, getting close to African consumers and forging deeper connections is the lifeblood of any effective marketing effort.

Cara Bouwer is a Johannesburg- based writer, journalist and editor. Her words appear in media articles around the world, in business case studies, insight reports and corporate copywriting. She is also an experienced ghost writer. @carabouwer