North Africa at the crossroads of e-commerce
Published : Monday 20 July 2015 - Alain Ducass, expert of digital transformation in Africa
By dedicating its March 2015 report on information economy to e-commerce, the UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) shows that this type of commerce is gaining ground. It estimated that B2B e-commerce got over 15,000 billion dollars in the world in 2013, which accounts for 8% of commerce between companies and that B2C e-commerce got over 1,200 billion dollars in the world in 2013.
In its symposium of 3 July 2015 on e-commerce in the French industry of digital commerce, the FEVAD (Federation of e-commerce and distance selling) highlighted a third type of e-commerce booming everywhere in the world: e-commerce between private individuals, that no longer limits itself to second-hand market, but that lies at the origin of a phenomenon called “uberisation” of society, that I prefer to call “collaborative commerce”.
A market of 170 million on-line buyers
In Africa and the Middle East, the number of on-line buyers was of 93.6 million in 2013, that is 7.1% of the population, or twice less than the world average of 15.2%.
In the future, eMarketer estimates that this number will reach 170.6 million in 2018, with a 82% growth, much higher than the world average of 50%, especially due to population growth, which is significantly higher in Africa than elsewhere, and to the emerging middle class.
These figures show a slow growth and significant perspectives at the same time, which shows that Africa in general, and North Africa in particular, lies at a crossroads for e-commerce.
IPEMED will shed light on the situation by soon publishing a study on the assets and handicaps of North Africa and Africa on the subject. Here are a few ideas: Tunisia is the first African country to have defined a consistent strategy in favour of e-commerce. And yet, this type of commerce is still underdeveloped, because of obstacles resulting from change regulation, poor logistics and the small size of the national market. Morocco is more advanced, with multinational actors such as Jumia competing with Moroccan actors gathered in the FNEM and a digital commerce oriented towards on-line purchase of imported products, while the government is trying to promote the exportation of national products via digital commerce.
Consumers and actors
Senegal and the Ivory Coast are naturally less advanced than the two North African leading countries, but they have a significant asset, the West African Monetary Union, allowing the development of national and international on-line payments by credit card and mobile phone.
It is now the turn of politicians, investors and inhabitants to act for:
• exploiting the market via the enthusiasm of North African middle classes to buy imported products and services on-line,
• structuring production sectors upfront, to sell on-line products and services made in North Africa on the international market,
• finding innovative solutions to create reliable logistics enabling to collect and deliver products all over North Africa,
• developing regional integration to enable transborder on-line payments,
• taking advantage of the North African diaspora in the world so that, just like the Senegalese, they can easily buy on-line products and services that will be delivered to their family who stayed in the country,
• taking advantage of global good practices to favour collaborative commerce, by encouraging inhabitants to be actors, as well as consumers,
• implementing a regulation favouring e-commerce when it is socially and ecologically beneficial and limiting it when it consists in importing from far away products and services locally available.
• imitating Western and Asian models or inventing a type of e-commerce respecting North African values and the real needs of its inhabitants.
Read all “Reflexions” on Econostrum website