Hiiraan Online
Thursday June 20, 2019
A Somali owned and operated e-commerce company has quietly been making serious headway in Africa. The company, ZIQQI.com, has a sharp looking site and powerful branding that makes it seem more like a large foreign player than a home-grown outfit.
Founded in late 2017 by 3 partners, Mo Ali, Hussein Ahmed, and Mohammed Ali, ZIQQI was built from the ground up to meet Africa’s growing demand for online shopping.
The company today boasts a presence in Somaliland, Somalia, Rwanda and Mali with plans to launch Uganda, Tanzania and Djibouti in the next several months.
African’s are joining the rest of the world looking for a wide product selection, access to global brands, and the convenience of online shopping with door-to-door delivery.
As it is with most startups, innovation is at the core of what ZIQQI does. Just this week the company launched ZIQQI USA for its African diaspora customers—providing them a platform to shop for their friends and family back home.
As CEO Mo Ali puts it, “Every African living abroad has gone through the ordeal of carrying many suitcases of stuff on their trips back home, or even worse, asking a friend to carry bags for them”. He said “shopping for friends and family shouldn’t be a painful experience and so we launched usa.ziqqi.com to solve that problem”. Customers can now use all major credit cards as well as PayPal to shop on the USA site for guaranteed delivery back on the Continent.
Of course ZIQQI wouldn’t be possible today without the advent of digital payments, the availability of 4G LTE broadband access, and growing penetration of smart phone usage in Africa. The e-commerce infrastructure available today wasn’t there 3-5 years ago and that makes a big difference. CEO Mo Ali highlighted the growing use of digital payments, “the card rails of the developed world don’t exist in Africa and economies here are increasingly cash-less and so ZIQQI has integrated with close to 20 of the leading mobile payment platforms in Africa”.
ZIQQI is not alone and there are other e-commerce players in Africa, some of which pre-date ZIQQI including Jumia, Takealot and Masoko. But Africa’s emerging economies present exciting opportunities with market comprised of 54 countries and the fastest-growing economy in the world according to IMF's World Economic Oulook.
Hargeisa was the first launch city for the company. Its hard to miss the ZIQQI brand plastered all over the city and their flashy green vans criss-crossing Hargeisa.
People are delighted to have them in town. Since opening shop in Hargeisa in February 2019, the company has delivered over 2000 packages and signed up thousands of customers.
Their social media reach is quite impressive on Facebook, Instagram etc. and the company’s senior management all obsess over customer service, a concept still foreign to many parts of Africa. With a 7-day delivery window guarantee, a well spelled out Returns policy, and a customer call center ZIQQI business revolves around the customer.
The company’s tag-line says it all “SIMPLY SHOP”. With ZIQQI, you can.