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There’s an old saying in Nigeria that one can outfit an entire home in a single drive across
Lagos, buying everything from cutlery and furniture to food and decorations from the thousands of hawkers that aggressively sell their wares along, and in the middle of the congested city’s potholed streets.

Now Nigerians have another option for comprehensive shopping. It’s a website called Jumia, and because it’s based online, shoppers don’t have to brave mind-numbing traffic to get their goods as the budding retail portal handles nearly all the schlepping with its nationwide network of 120 delivery trucks.

Africa’s Amazon

Jumia is not a name known to many Westerners, but it can best be described as Africa’s answer to Jeff Bezos’ multibillion-dollar Amazon empire, though its tale of ascendancy tracks to a much shorter timeline.

Officially launched under the name Kasuwa in June 2012, the company that was later rebranded as Jumia has definitely captured the attention of investors, as top firms including J.P. Morgan Asset Management and Summit Partners have already backed the start-up to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. From that low-key start, the company has quickly grown to become a major player in the continent’s retail industry, currently offering more than 100,000 different products from computers and books to makeup and clothing to consumers in six countries across Africa.

The company which grows and changes at lightning speed, meaning this information will likely soon be outdated -- currently promises to deliver any item in its 90,000 central warehouse in the Ikeja district of Lagos to any location in the city within a single day, and anywhere in the entire country within five days. It’s a lofty guarantee, and one that seems to be working fairly well for the company.Though circumstances and travel difficulties occasionally make it impossible for Jumia to fulfill their promise, the company's commitment to fast service despite the challenges mirrors co-founders Kehinde and Raphael Afaedor’s visionary approach to the African market.

Jumia will soon serve the shopping needs of every West African nation and beyond. And if any company can pull off such a feat, it appears Jumia is the best placed to do so, as it has exploded from five employees to more than 500 in the short period since its launch, and its Lagos nerve center is now the largest e-commerce campus in Nigeria. Jumia is at the vanguard of a growing tech commerce industry in West Africa and Nigeria in particular, where many startups have launched in recent years that offer services similar to popular Western websites such as eBay, Seamless, Fresh Direct and Hotels.com.

The company faces a range of obstacles on the road to becoming the singular, indispensable African online retailer its founders want it to be. One is the question of its ability to make good on its guarantee to deliver high-quality, well-priced products within set time frames to any place within its metastasizing distribution areas. Orders are easilly delivered to urban areas which are easy to get to, but partner with DHL and other third-party providers for the harder-to-reach areas. Jumia employs 85 customer service agents. Challenges and other hindrances surely lie ahead, not least of which are the complications inherent in trying to fulfill Jumia’s promise of delivering any item to any place in Nigeria within five days, and other similar pledges in other nations served by the online marketplace.

Despite all relatively minor frustrations, it appears that Jumia is on track to continue to grow into one of the most important and dominant retail operations in Africa. What once required a trek to the market now only requires the click of a mouse or the submission of a form on a smartphone app.