By virtually any standard, Jumia is Nigeria’s biggest e-commerce platform, and miles away from the rest. They would however do well to pay a little more attention to their rear-view mirror. Of late, there’s reason to believe that their strongest contender, Konga, will be closing that gap in 2013.
While Konga started with a narrow focus on beauty, baby and personal care products, those of us watching might have noticed that they’ve been silently, gradually cranking the heat up all the time. Shortly after launch, they added groceries, household items and other fast moving consumer goods. Since then, they’ve expanded into gadgets, watches, books, movies, office items and home appliances.
How soon is shortly? I was told that shortly is in a few weeks — sometime in February, all things being equal.
Like I said, this was expected. In November, I broke the news of Dealdey’s acquisition of online fashion store, 3stiches, and in that article, I speculated about 3stiches future in the DealDey empire. Specifically, I pointed out three possibilities — 3stiches could run by itself. Or it could be co-opted into DealDey’s daily deals. Or it could merge with Konga, and become that platform’s fashion category. As it turns out, I was right on the last two counts. The 3stiches domain currently redirects to DealDey’s fashion and style category. The “mind blowing apparel, shoes and accessories section” referenced in the Konga tweet is obviously the next step in the assimilation process that may see Konga punching its way into Jumia’s weight class, come next year.
Of course, I think that Konga is already ahead of Jumia in other respects. What Konga lacks in size, it more than makes up for in raw execution — at least that’s what the customers say. They’re also very nimble — Konga now delivers anywhere in Nigeria. From where I’m standing, their incremental, data driven growth strategy has stood them in good stead. By having a narrow focus at the initial stages and scaling incrementally, they’ve been able to conserve their energies and gather the knowledge and resources that has allowed them come from behind and deftly slide into the inside track of Nigeria’s ecommerce race.
Jumia might be in front now, but Konga’s preparing to activate the nitro boosters. Do you think that a fashion category will allow them catch up to, or even overtake Jumia in 2013?