Online shopping firm Jumia to open experiential stores

Sam Chappatte, Managing director of Jumia online retailer during the Jumia and Google small and medium businesses training partnership at pride inn on 22nd June 2017 PHOTO DAVID GICHURU

E-commerce Company, Jumia, is set to open more experiential centres to educate customers and build online trust when shopping. An experiential centre is where someone can go and be taken through online trading.

The company expects to open an additional 5 to 10 stores this year, in Kisumu, Eldoret and Nakuru as it moves to deepen e-commerce in Kenya.

Jumia opened its first experiential centre in June last year in Nairobi CBD. This was followed by another one in Mombasa.

The company insists that the opening of the experiential shops does not mean they are going offline.

“The aim is to provide touch points for customers, where they can ask questions and place orders for our various online services. Our in-store team will explain how ordering works, help them choose from our 700,000 products and can troubleshoot should any issues arise,” said Jumia Managing Director Sam Chappatte.

The offline experiential centres have touch tablets, free WiFi and customer service desks.

Currently, the experiential centres do not stock any items, as the centres are used to sensitise customers who do not understand how to place online orders on the platform.