I wrote this morning that Amazon Go is a path for Amazon to conquer territories which are impervious to ecommerce. Amazon Go will become the future retail operating system. After writing for Konga to sell, and they actually sold, I have come to admire the new Konga. Largely, the new Konga is a better business than Jumia and if they continue to execute, that will be the category-king.
Amazon has done well in America. But Amazon is not a force in global retail – it represents a very low single-digit percentage of the total retail market. Jeff Bezos, the Founder and CEO of Amazon, knows that. You cannot have disruptive impacts in global retail unless you bring atoms in the playbook. So, besides the success of Amazon digital, Amazon has been going offline. It brought Whole Foods home. But the biggest that will happen is Amazon Go – automated and cashier-less retail shop. Simply, with Amazon Go, Amazon can become the operating system of modern retailing. In the company’s letter to shareholders, Jeff made that note.
Do not be tripped by Jumia’s 14 countries in Africa – most of those countries are smaller that the GDP of Ikeja. But Konga is expanding territories with possibility to deliver to my village. Africa’s ecommerce will be won with atoms – Konga is making it happen.
Nnamdi explains this evolution and revolution with new products this company has launched. With those physical stores, the new Konga is a real deal. Amazon or Alibaba can buy it within years!
Konga is a leading Nigerian omni-channel e-commerce brand on a mission to become the engine of trade and commerce in Nigeria and beyond. It was founded by a Nigerian serial entrepreneur, Sim Shagaya, in 2013, but was acquired by the Zinox Group.
The key sentence is thus: “Our mid-term goal would see to the establishment of more stores across Nigeria”. Yes, the new Konga would be opening physical stores across Nigeria. Certainly, that is a great winning business model. Besides the money being in the physical space, having stores will reduce the marginal cost challenges associated with pure play ecommerce. The piece quoted me as it argued the brilliance of pursuing this hybrid commerce for Konga
The company has undergone a strategic redesign which has seen it become the pioneer of the online marketplace structure with physical retail stores nationwide, with diversification into other businesses. Konga provides shoppers access to thousands of credible merchants, offering millions of certified, competitively priced products, across many categories.
In partnership with Microsoft, it launched a proprietary integrated application which is the first in Africa that will be the anchor of its expansion on the continent with a target to launch additional 140 Retail Stores and 15 mega fulfillment centers across Nigeria by the third quarter of 2020.
On May 1st 2019, Konga will launch Konga Same Day Delivery for product categories in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt while improving its delivery rate by over 50 percent to other states.
Here are some major redesigns.
Konga B2B: This is Konga’s most aggressive price offering that supports resellers and bulk buyers nationwide with deliveries to locations no matter the distance. Shipments will be made from their mega fulfillment centers in Lagos, Port Harcourt, Abuja, Onitsha, Kano, Warri, Enugu, Ibadan, Owerri and Uyo. It will be live from May 1st 2019.
Konga Corporate: Its renowned highly competitive pricing and shopping bargains is extended to corporate organizations, cooperatives, government agencies, NGOs and others. It has a well trained team across different cities in Nigeria with understanding of how corporate entities operate and the flexible payment needs of Cooperative Associations with its Konga Pay mobile money platform.
Konga Pay: Konga Pay is its solution to simplify payments. It is a Central Bank of Nigeria licensed electronic wallet for making and receiving payments, airtime recharge, payment of digital terrestrial television subscription as well as linking your debit cards and bank accounts for seamless transfers or payments. The platform is fast, secure and easy to use, offering convenience to users.
KExpress: A digital logistics company with the capacity and nationwide spread for Konga and other users to meet the last mile deliveries for their customers, effectively. KEpress has advanced capacity and robust technology which allows its customers to accurately track their goods online irrespective of the location.
Konga Travel: Konga Travel is a 21st Century lifestyle travel and tourism brand with cutting edge technology in the industry for online and offline businesses, to service individuals, families, group and corporate travel needs. It wants to improve the customer experience in the industry to the served, underserved and unserved travelers.
Konga will soon launch Platinum and Gold status merchants in Konga fulfillment centers. These merchants and manufacturers are provided secure spaces in its centers for efficient delivery to its shoppers.
With a soon to be concluded transaction of a major healthcare chain in Nigeria, Konga will bring its success in revolutionizing commerce to transform an industry which is ripe for digital transaction to serve the healthcare needs of Nigerians. Konga is undergoing revolution and evolution at the same time in the Nigerian ecommerce system. Its hybrid model is the path to sustained growth and profitability.
Let me wish many traveling for Good Friday and Easter. I like the Good Friday/Easter because it reminds me what it means to move from the valley to the mountaintop. Anything can rise, including careers, and I am hoping the spirit of the season will unlock moments of hope – and glory, for many.
As you celebrate the season, find answers to this question: what are the 3 things I need to do to move from Good Friday to Easter in my career? The ecclesiastical translation from Good Friday to Easter required Action. If you want such, you need to take action also.
The key is taking action and working to do things that can impact your desired outcome. The Action is the Call to Mission.
This is a trailer announcing my upcoming talk in the Platform. I hope you will make it.
I will speak in the Platform, the extremely popular national live TV conversation, on May 1 2019. Prof Yemi Osinbajo (vice President of Nigeria), Dr Peter Obi (PDP 2019 vice presidential candidate), a Goldman Sachs Managing Director, and other leaders have spoken in the Platform. Few hours ago, I accepted to speak in this prestigious event. The invitation letter had, in part, included: “I am strongly convinced that your extensive work and contributions … will be of immeasurable benefit…”
Over the years, the Platform has emerged as an important platform for deep national conversations. With more than 35 million people watching live and online, I will present a redesign for our nation in a topic titled The Growth of Nations. Looking at drivers, enablers and other elements for economic prosperity, the talk will be a moment.
Amazon has done well in America. But Amazon is not a force in global retail – it represents a very low single-digit percentage of the total retail market. Jeff Bezos, the Founder and CEO of Amazon, knows that. You cannot have disruptive impacts in global retail unless you bring atoms in the playbook. So, besides the success of Amazon digital, Amazon has been going offline. It brought Whole Foods home. But the biggest that will happen is Amazon Go – automated and cashier-less retail shop. Simply, with Amazon Go, Amazon can become the operating system of modern retailing. In the company’s letter to shareholders, Jeff made that note.
Amazon today remains a small player in global retail. We represent a low single-digit percentage of the retail market, and there are much larger retailers in every country where we operate. And that’s largely because nearly 90% of retail remains offline, in brick and mortar stores. For many years, we considered how we might serve customers in physical stores, but felt we needed first to invent something that would really delight customers in that environment. With Amazon Go, we had a clear vision. Get rid of the worst thing about physical retail: checkout lines. No one likes to wait in line. Instead, we imagined a store where you could walk in, pick up what you wanted, and leave.
Getting there was hard. Technically hard. It required the efforts of hundreds of smart, dedicated computer scientists and engineers around the world. We had to design and build our own proprietary cameras and shelves and invent new computer vision algorithms, including the ability to stitch together imagery from hundreds of cooperating cameras. And we had to do it in a way where the technology worked so well that it simply receded into the background, invisible. The reward has been the response from customers, who’ve described the experience of shopping at Amazon Go as “magical.” We now have 10 stores in Chicago, San Francisco, and Seattle, and are excited about the future
Amazon Go is a new kind of store featuring the world’s most advanced shopping technology. No lines, no checkout – just grab and go! If it thrives, Amazon will license the technology to the world of retail. So, it is going to become like Amazon’s AWS (Amazon Web Services), the cloud computing business, which allows people to rent cloud computing spaces for their online solutions. Amazon Go will help retail stores to rent the technology to automate their stores at scale.
According to a promotional video published by Amazon, the store concept uses several technologies, including computer vision, deep learning algorithms, and sensor fusion to automate much of the purchase, checkout, and payment steps associated with a retail transaction. The store concept is seen as a revolutionary model that relies on the prevalence of smartphones and geofencing technology to streamline the customer experience, as well as supply chain and inventory management. However, public roll-out of the Seattle Amazon Go prototype location was delayed due to issues with the sensors’ ability to track multiple users or objects within the store, such as when children move items to other shelves or when more than one customer has a similar body habitus.
One Oasis Emerges
Amazon Go will evolve as a separate product even though at the moment, it is supporting Amazon commerce. As typical in the One Oasis Strategy, the original goal is to make the best product better, but over time, the solution can go alone in itself. The AWS was built for the ecommerce business. Today, it is a business of itself, delivering great value.
Indeed, oasis is very critical and every company has oasis. Your best product is the oasis in your business. Every other product feeds on that best product. If you build your investment around that main product, you will find success, because those investments will have a clear “customer”, and that reduces market risks. In other words, if your new business investments are geared to support the best product, and the best product is doing well, it means the risks on the new investments will be easily managed. Provided the best product continues to do well, demand on the new investment is assured. That is the One Oasis Strategy.
The technology will bring the unification that will help Amazon pursue a bigger share of the global retail market. Yes, hybrid commerce is important as most nations still do retail offline. The Amazon Go will help in accelerating the mission, not just to sell more things for Amazon, but to collect “taxes” as Amazon currently does, in taking companies online, via AWS. Yes, as companies license the tech, on the global retail space, they will pay fees to Amazon. The acceleration of 5G will make this redesign happen faster.
