

Brimore currently partners with 300 manufacturers and 75,000 women resellers across Egypt. $8.9 billion: Value of the social commerce industry in Africa and the Middle East by 2022ĥ5.2%: Projected growth of social commerce in Africa and the Middle East between 20, at which point the market is expected to hit $13.3 billionĥ20 million: Estimated number of online shoppers in Africa by 2025 The case studyįounders: Mohamed Abdulaziz and Ahmed Sheikahįounded in 2017, Brimore is an Egyptian social commerce startup that almost exclusively works with women resellers to sell products through social media on behalf of manufacturers.

By the digitsĩ2% : Share of small and medium enterprises that utilize social media for their business in Kenya 💰 The stakeholders: Social media sales agents, e-commerce and social media startups, digital businesses, development financiers, international finance institutions, fintech firms, and consumers. Expensive and poor connectivity is also a challenge on a continent that has a sizable portion of its population in poorly serviced rural areas. 🤔 The challenge: Organizing Africa’s informal retail distribution platforms into formal channels is a key opportunity that social commerce and e-commerce companies are pursuing. These agents take goods straight to interested end-users. 🌍 The roadmap: Social commerce startups across African markets are tapping into social media agents to reach larger circles through platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, WhatsApp, and Twitter. This presents an opportunity for a fast-rising group of social commerce companies. 💡 The opportunity: Rising internet and smartphone penetration across Africa is giving rise to increased reliance on social media for communication and networking. Perhaps most important, the growing sector is perfect for meeting Africa’s consumer where they spend most of their online time: using social media on mobile phones. In Africa, 83% of employment remains informal, and social commerce has the potential to tap into these familiar and agile ways of doing business. These agents don’t need to hold stock, but are able to tap into a supplier’s catalog of products and move them through their own social media networks for a commission. While there are companies selling to customers directly via social media, some innovative and scalable startups are taking a two-tiered approach: Agents linked to larger suppliers market large lists of products to their social media circles. Most social-commerce startups also use algorithms to drive targeted marketing.

By making e-commerce even more convenient, social-commerce startups are looking to further disrupt retail, which remains dominated by brick-and-mortar stores that rarely offer credit sales, customized delivery, and other conveniences. “ Social commerce,” an e-commerce sub-genre, refers to trading and selling goods via social media-for example, snagging the latest trendy outfit using WhatsApp, Telegram groups, or Instagram pages. Thanks to its youthful, tech-savvy population of 1.3 billion, Africa is well positioned for the rise of e-commerce, a shift hastened by pandemic lockdowns forcing even more purchasing online.
