I have always wanted to write something about this group of people for a while. They have
something in common. They are e-commerce sites and they are modeled after the
success of Amazon.com. Amazon is the world’s largest online retailer and one of
the most successful internet empires on the face of the planet. However,
duplicating Amazon’s success has been a bit of a challenge in sub-saharan
Africa. Naspers closed its operations in Nigeria in 2011 after stating that its
ability to make near-term profits wasn’t probable. It shut down Kalahari.com.ng
in both Nigeria and Kenya at the same year. It commenced operations in Nigeria
and was only alive for twenty months. It sounded like a less-strategic move as
one would wonder “I thought they said Africans were consumers, why then did
Kalahari fail?”. I think Naspers failed on the Kalahari e-commerce projects as
it didn’t really understand the terrain it was playing in as well as logistics problems it encountered. I’ll explain a bit
further. Online business in Africa, especially Nigeria is a bit of a challenge.
