Why you can no longer ignore online shopping

More Ugandans are using mobile phones to shop online, according to the Uganda Mobile report.
According to the report, shopping on Jumia Uganda through mobile phones accounted for 77 per cent while 23 per cent of shoppers preferred to use desktop computers.

During the release of the report about Uganda’s mobile industry in Kampala, Mr Ham Namakajjo, the Jumia country manager attributed the growth to surging mobile device prices.
“The reduction in prices has been driven [easy access to mobile phones]. This means that increasingly, the prices of smartphones need to go down for [online shopping] to get more traffic,” he said.

The average price of a smartphone, for instance online stands at about Shs300,000 down from Shs600,000 in 2015.
With mobile phone ownership growing to 70.9 per cent according to the National IT Survey 2017/18, mobile shopping is expected to grow substantially.

However, this will also rely on the growth of internet and prices of data across the online divide.
According to Mr Ian Mugambe, a marketer, as more Ugandans get busier, it is only natural that many will resort to online shopping.
“When I look at my working hours, I do not have the time to go shopping. But if I am online and see a shoe I like, I order for it and get it two days later. That for me, means convenience,” he said.
According to the report mobile shopping is the future of e-commerce and there is a high likelihood that user demographics will shift from the ages of between 25 and 35 to below 24 years.

Jumia operates an online store whose traffic grew to 300,000 visitors per month last year from 200,000 in 2016.
Speaking at the event, Mr Sefik Bagdadioglu, the Jumia regional manager, said the positive growth is an indication of increasing capacity of the online retail space.
“Our job is to make sure that our sites, prices and assortments are reflective of what people are looking for,” he said.
However, even with the positive growth, majority of Ugandans still depend on cash payment to make transactions.
About 83 per cent of Ugandans pay cash on delivery while 16 per cent use mobile money.
The trend, Mr Namakajjo said, could be attributed to trust issues, which makes them want to try out something before they can use it.

However, the issue could be beyond this as the National IT Survey, attributes low usage of online shopping services to high cost of transactions.
About 49.6 per cent of Ugandans, according to the National IT Survey, reported high cost as a huge barrier to e-payments, which is largely blamed on mobile money charges.

Mr Peter Kahiigi, the director e-government services at the National Information Technology Authority-Uganda said e-commerce is supposed to make things simpler but if it is cheaper for Ugandans to walk to Owino Market to buy a flat iron, then government has not succeeded in achieving that.
To mitigate this, he said: “We are mapping the city so that shopping online gets cheaper.”
“We are having talks with the Ministry of Finance around payment gateways to make sure that cost of transaction is low because with more people on board, they can spread that cost over a million customers,” he added.