Response Architects, owners of ShopEX, has formed a partnership with Alibaba Cloud which is the digital technology and intellectual backbone of the Alibaba Group. The partnership will enable them to launch an African Livestream platform named Penda to function in Major markets such as Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya.
About Response Architects and ShopEX
Response Architects is an African-based retail and technology company that owns and coordinates the activities of ShopEX and UniLogix.
ShopEX had been considered and known as the world’s most successful “As Seen On TV” platform in Africa. Both companies hope to replicate the success of ShopEX by providing an end-to-end payment and fulfillment solution for vendors who engage in live streaming across the African Continent.
About Penda The Africa Livestream Shopping Platform
Penda is developed with a platform that grants merchants and users the ability to create and host their Livestream products, interact with customers and perform other duties. It also provides for an in-app purchase portal that enables users to make seamless payments without existing a Livestream event or the mobile application.
In the world, today Livestream shopping is one of the biggest methods for buying and selling in the e-commerce sector as it has generated over $400 Billion in China alone with Alibaba Taobao Livestream gaining over 300 million users and generating over $323 Billion in GMV (Gross Merchandise Value) sales.
Penda which is an e-commerce store and is based on integrated Live streaming will provide users with everything they would require to set up an online store from Payment, Fulfillment, analytics, and inventory management; it also enables users to access finances, and let them ship various products from the manufacturers to the suppliers in China.
Customers who use this platform can have live interactions with influencers and store owners and they are usually gifted with a coupon for either traveling or booking restaurants, hotels, cinemas, etc.
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Since ShopEX has generated over $2.5 million in sales since it was launched in 2020, the CEO of the company, Isi Adebe, visions Live streaming as an opportunity to infiltrate the TV shopping model and also increase the market share among the younger generations of uses and entrepreneurs, he said:
“We tapped into this opportunity because we realized that a lot of vendors were seeking new ways of marketing their goods using video content and engaging with their customers. We see Penda as the convergence of social and e-commerce which will radically change the way people shop on the continent”.
Benefits Of E-commerce Over Traditional Retail
If you are familiar with retail shopping you would know that there are a lot of limitations and restrictions such as Geographical locations but with an e-commerce website and store, you could conduct all your shopping from home which makes the world position itself as your playground. Here are the benefits of e-commerce over traditional retail:
1) Gaining new customers for the vendors:
In the traditional retail method, a lot of hard work and money has to be put into your advertising agenda especially if you are a new startup, and most times you only offer services to those that are around you which means you are limited by Geographical location but in e-commerce when customers input the product they desire in a search engine it provides them with a lot of stores offering that same product which means a vendor from India maybe selling goods to a customer in the US without any issues, in e-commerce you aren’t restricted by geographical location.
2) Locate your desired products quickly:
As I said previously, once you input your desired products into a search engine it provides you with a lot of options and their prices so it is left for you to pick the one most convenient for you while in traditional retail you will have to journey physically to places where you expect to see your products and even the customer is uncertain of they will have your desired product at the store he/she is headed to.
3) Eliminate some unnecessary fees:
In e-commerce when you pay for a product you also add a delivery fee which will enable the product to be either delivered at your doorstep or a pickup station but in traditional retail, you will have to journey to places accompanied with stress- and you may not even see your desired product which means that the money used on transportation is now considered as a waste.
Also, since e-commerce is done online, you can visit particular several times with only a few mouse clicks which are time sparing, less expensive, and less stressful.
4) Availability of Alternatives:
In e-commerce when you search for the desired product online, the search engine provides you with a lot of prions and alternatives for you to choose the one most convenient for you.
5) Availability of Coupons and discounts:
Most online stores usually offer discounts on most of their products hence making them cheaper as compared to physical stores which come at a free price, since negotiations are done online when a customer is a regular customer they may offer 30% off his next purchase just to encourage him to continue using that stores.
They can also give out coupons to intending customers to prompt them to purchase a product and by inputting the coupon code in the required space they get a little bit of discount on their first purchase.
6) Open at all times:
Unlike traditional retailers who close shops and stores by 8 pm-9 pm while highlighting security reasons as a major factor in them closing early, e-commerce stores are always functional 24/7 since they are done online and vendors on their site can be accessed at any time which is most convenient for you.
According to various interviewed users of e-commerce stores, they prefer using e-commerce stores because they are more convenient to the customer than traditional retail stores.
Conclusion
The new partnership between Response Architects and Alibaba Cloud will prove to be a major advantage to Africa as it will introduce Livestream shopping to the planet as it has already been adopted worldwide, especially in China where it is already popular among the citizens. This partnership will bring much-needed improvement to the e-commerce sector hence popularizing and making it more efficient for prospective customers.
