Author, The author, Melvin Tarlue, is a Ghana-based Liberian Journalist and Marketing Communications Executive
Ghana is digitizing quick, constructing a sturdy web ecosystem, giving increasingly more folks the chance to promote or have interaction in some kind of buying and selling actions on-line. According to International Trade Administration, Ghana has roughly 15 million web customers who’re shopping for on-line day by day. Leading native e-commerce platforms embrace Hubtel, Jumia, Plendify, Jiji, in addition to Uber Eats and Bolt Food. Ghanaian prospects additionally order items from Amazon for supply to U.S. places that then use low cost categorical couriers to ship items to Ghana extra cheaply.
About 5 many years in the past in Ghana, buying and selling actions have been restricted to retail and wholesale retailers and open areas just like the Kaneshie Market, Makola Market or in site visitors in main cities. But the situation has modified so significantly right this moment, with the web opening up the area for anybody who needs to commerce, to begin on-line with out even worrying about the associated fee of renting a construction or area. Buy and Sell teams on Facebook are sufficient right this moment to get began as a younger entrepreneur.
In 2020, Ghana’s ecommerce sector was estimated to be value about 429 million {dollars} with it equal 2.54 billion cedis in income. And it’s anticipated to rise to 811 million {dollars} and its equal 4.81 billion in cedis by 2024. Globally, UNCTAD estimated e-commerce gross sales at 25.6 trillion {dollars} in 2018, an 8% increment over 2017, saying “a growing share of e-commerce involves cross-border sales.”
Factors accounting for achievement of e-commerce
According to Shopify, “e-commerce also known as electronic commerce or internet commerce, refers to the buying and selling of goods or services using the internet, and the transfer of money and data to execute these transactions. E-commerce is often used to refer to the sale of physical products online, but it can also describe any kind of commercial transaction that is facilitated through the internet.”
A quantity of components account for the extent to which on-line companies are profitable in each nation. These components embrace Internet pace and penetration, fee platforms and options, e-commerce software program, supply and logistics administration, and property addressing methods. In the case of Ghana, so much of important funding has been made in these areas, for example, the nation offers a cellular cash interoperability service, the GhanaPay platform, to allow simple on-line fee in addition to the availability of a viable digital property addressing system, all of that are accounting for the event of the e-commerce sector within the nation.
The fast improvement of the web ecosystem, particularly e-commerce sector in Ghana is sweet information because it has resulted in an entrepreneurial drive amongst the youth, altering the youth unemployment narrative. However, the cons to this fast improvement is the continual cedi depreciation in worth to worldwide currencies just like the US Dollar, British Pound and the Euro. A greenback now stands at twelve cedis, to essentially grasp the tenets of this chance, get rhetoric on the next questions; How is the expansion of e-commerce in Ghana affecting the efficiency of the Cedi? Who are producing the majority of the products being traded over the web on platforms like Jumia, Tonaton? What items are principally being traded over the web? Are they Made-in-Ghana items? Or made in China, Japan, South Korea, US, UK, France and US items? Is the business in Ghana doing sufficient to bridge the hole between the ever growing demand for items led to by e-commerce, and provide? Is the prevailing native manufacturing of items and providers assembly the rising demand on the web?
Maybe we have to know the way the Ministry of Trade and Industry is working to make sure that the One District One Factory coverage of the President Nana Akufo-Addo’s Government is ready to improve native manufacturing of items which can be principally traded over the web as a result of the present fee at which the Ghana cedi is depreciating is a transparent indication that there’s excessive demand for the US Dollar apparently as a result of we’re importing extra and exporting much less, that the nation’s industrial subsector will not be doing nicely sufficient and the influence of the One District One Factory will not be being actually felt as anticipated.
History of E-commerce in Ghana
A journey down reminiscence lane will present that eshopafrica.com was the primary e-commerce web site in Ghana. The agency was established by an English lady named Cordelia Salter-Nour again in 1999, and its web site was formally launched in February 2001. eshopafrica.com was principally dealing in merchandise manufactured in Ghana equivalent to Kente material, jewellery, carvings, baskets, collectibles.
Other e-commerce web sites equivalent to shopafrica53.com, afrochiconline.com, africaretail.com, tisu.com.gh, ahonya.com and mogoogi.com then emerged and have been buying and selling in comparable merchandise made principally in Ghana.
But right this moment, the case is totally different. Among the highest e-commerce web sites in Ghana presently are: jumia.com.gh, superprice.com, kikuu.com.gh melcomonline.com, zoobashop.com, and arguably, a lot of the products traded on these ecommerce platforms are imported ones. For instance, smartphones, laptops, fridges, tv units, usually electronics, garments, footwear.
Top classes
A 2020 report by WopeDigital titled: ‘E-commerce In Ghana, 2020 – An Insightful Report, showed that the fashion industry, including “all those into clothing, shoes and fashion accessories” ranked top among the categories online. A significant number of fashion products traded in Ghana are imported. According to the Observatory of Economic Complexity, in 2020 alone, Ghana was the world’s largest importer of Used Clothing ($182M).
In second place, based on the WopeDigital report, was the electronics business protecting laptops, telephones and different electrical devices. Ghana imports of electrical, digital tools was US$685.02 Million throughout 2019, the United Nations COMTRADE database on worldwide commerce, signifies. Of course, it’s an open secret that Ghana doesn’t produce electronics however slightly imports.
Ghana has traditionally been an import-led nation and the speed of importation is quickly growing as a result of promoting or buying and selling in Ghana right this moment has been made simple and more cost effective. Check the whatsapp statuses of three or 4 mates or family members, you would possibly discover one of them promoting a product both made in China or UK. Check Facebook, you would possibly see merchandise made abroad being marketed in Ghana by your mates. You in all probability have requested a good friend to order a bag or shoe from kikuu.com.gh for you, that bag definitely made in China and requires foreign money trade to allow its importation. Today, virtually everyone seems to be promoting. Some of us sit in our workplaces and promote by our WhatsApp or Facebook pages. I’ve a neighbor who sells digital gadgets however doesn’t personal a bodily retailer. He imports, retailer the gadgets in his room and promote on-line, and use a dispatch rider to ship his gadgets to purchasers and he sells on a regular basis. The financial system is probably not doing nicely right this moment, however there is no such thing as a denying that Ghanaians’ spending and consumption have elevated over the previous few years, a improvement attributed considerably to the rising center class with better spending energy. Today, Ghanaians are spending on the whole lot – from healthcare merchandise, apparels, electronics to constructing {hardware}, and meals merchandise.
Boost industrialization
So it’s crucial that as Ghana focuses extra vitality on totally digitizing its financial system, important efforts should even be positioned on boosting the efficiency of the commercial sector as a result of the expansion in digitalization will imply a progress in buying and selling actions and if the nation can’t produce bulk of what will probably be traded on ecommerce platforms, will probably be left with no alternative however to import from these international locations which can be producing such merchandise, therefore it can (holding all different issues fixed) proceed to file a depreciation of the Ghana Cedi as a result of increasingly more folks will probably be shopping for the greenback for import functions.
There is the necessity for the Ministry of Trade and Industry to have interaction main e-commerce platforms like Jumia, Tonaton to search out out what Government can do, by the One District One Factory Policy, to search out out methods of producing or growing manufacturing of some of the principle buying and selling gadgets on e-commerce platforms.
Writer’s e mail: tarluemelvin12@gmail.com