Renaud Glenisson joined Jumia Côte d'Ivoire in 2015 as Chief Financial Officer and was then appointed Chief Financial Officer for West Africa in 2017, still based in Abidjan. In 2020, he took on the role of Chief Financial and Risk Officer of JumiaPay for Africa and became Chief Executive Officer of Jumia Côte d'Ivoire in May 2022.
Jumia is celebrating its 10th anniversary. What are its greatest achievements and what are you most proud of?
To address the question of major achievements would be to review Jumia's social impact in Côte d'Ivoire.
- Jobs: Jumia directly employs more than 300 people. Through its activities, Jumia enables thousands of local sellers to increase their visibility and thus encourages them to hire more staff to support their production and/or distribution activities.
- Local businesses: Jumia enables SMEs across Côte d'Ivoire to reach millions of consumers, taking advantage of the digital economy to significantly increase their level of activity. In addition, more than 30% of sellers are women entrepreneurs.
- Economic development: Jumia contributes to the economic development of Côte d'Ivoire by enabling many entrepreneurs to embark on new innovative projects. To date, we have thousands of young entrepreneurs across the country who are self-employed through the JForce program.
- Connecting regional areas: Jumia reaches people in rural areas and gives them access to its vast product catalog and logistics. To date, you can have your purchases delivered to more than 100 municipalities via pick-up points throughout Côte d'Ivoire.
- Development through online payments: Through JumiaPay, Jumia is contributing to the development of digital payment solutions, which are key to the success of e-commerce and an important asset for most countries in terms of development prospects.
Ten years after your launch in 2012 on the African continent, where are you today in Africa, and more specifically in Côte d'Ivoire?
Over the past 10 years, Jumia has built a marketplace connecting millions of consumers to more than 100,000 sellers offering more than a single logistics platform in Africa, providing efficient delivery services thanks to its in-house technology, its 700 partners, and its strong physical presence (nearly 3,000 pick-up and drop-off points) on the continent. Through its "Jumia Logistics" service, the group offers storage, transport, and "last mile" delivery services in more than 10 countries in Africa. In Côte d'Ivoire, Jumia has a strong presence throughout the country with more than 180 agencies and relay points, a sales force of more than 5,000 Jforce agents (Jumia Force, a sales force made up of entrepreneurs thanks to e-commerce) and a particular focus on "last mile delivery" via the network of agencies and relay points.
After several years marked by difficulties, how is the e-commerce market in Côte d'Ivoire doing today?
Several factors have led to the development of e-commerce and, consequently, Jumia's activities in Côte d'Ivoire. These include more than 7 million active smartphone users among millions of internet users, with an estimated internet penetration rate of 47% in 2020. All these factors bring new opportunities to millions of consumers who can shop online. Today, e-commerce gives them easy access to hundreds of thousands of products online, at transparent prices, with delivery to virtually anywhere in Côte d'Ivoire.
E-commerce provides solutions to the daily lives of many people, and we have seen its relevance during the pandemic. Jumia has created an entire ecosystem, and the impact on sellers and our partners is significant. Young people find work in our ecosystem (direct or indirect employment) through our J-Force program, and our sellers continue to grow and reach customers throughout the country. All this has become possible thanks to e-commerce. A customer can stay in Ferkessédougou, order online via Jumia from a store located in Abidjan, and have their order delivered to their city.
How did you manage to adapt and reinvent your model in order to survive?
The internet brings new opportunities, and all these actions help to accelerate the adoption of e-commerce.
At Jumia, we constantly strive to evolve our business model in line with the development of the market in which we operate. For example, we focus on the Ivorian market and on a combination of physical goods and online services to ensure strong diversification and protect ourselves against market risks.
We are also convinced that the collective success of Jumia and many other start-ups in the country will continue to attract new entrepreneurs, other industry players, and investors to these markets. We have invested considerable energy, passion, focus, and commitment to adapt to the very unique and specific characteristics of Côte d'Ivoire. Our agility has enabled us to grow rapidly and steadily. We are very positive about our position in this market.
What are the main prospects and strategic ambitions for the coming years?
In the coming years, we plan to get even closer to consumers with a significant presence in the interior of the country.
We have started to create order hubs in remote areas such as Ebilassokro, Didoko, Zaranou, and many others in order to better serve the population. We have also developed a free 24-hour delivery service in Abidjan, Yamoussoukro, and Bouaké. We are continuing to work with our logistics teams and partners to extend this service to more cities and regions.
Attentive to the needs and concerns of consumers, we recently launched Jumia Food Market, which delivers groceries in about 15 minutes in Abidjan via the Jumia Food mobile app. Our teams continue to work to further develop this "quick commerce" service for the benefit of Ivorians.
We are always working on new solutions that will improve consumers' daily lives and change consumption and purchasing habits through e-commerce.