GoBEBA is an on-demand e-commerce logistics platform has been operational in for the better part of 2018. It’s play for the market is to allow customers shop directly from Kenyan merchants and have their products or goods delivered to them in under one hour.
According to GoBEBA, Kenyans who have no time going through the platform’s catalog of products can dedicate their time on other things and have a team of experts do the shopping for them. This, reportedly, is convenient to such a demographic as it saves time. At the same time, the firm will also lend a hand in delivering gods to micro-retailers in small urban centers in Kenya.
Interested customers can send a shopping list to the firm and let it do the hard work for them. Even customers who do not have smart devices can send a shopping list via SMS, wait for GoBEBA to do the shopping, pay and wait for delivery within the hour. However, this is a new organization, and we are not sure whether it has established a robust logistics network to meet the one-hour delivery window.
GoBEBA supplements the likes of Nigeria’s Kobo360 that launched its operations in Kenya just the other day and Bwala Africa that has been operational for more than one year. These institutions are purely logistics, whereas GoBEBA incorporates an e-commerce platform.
GoBEBA was founded by former OLX Country Manager Peter Ndiang’ui. OLX, which has since been acquired by Nigeria’s Jiji, and is one OF e-commerce platforms that have exercised their trade in the Kenyan market for an extended period alongside Jumia. Another key founder is Ms. Lesley Mbsogo, an ex-Amazon Head of Product.
Mr. Ndiang’ui says that millennials love the convenience of using their smart devices to get access to services and products, a market that GoBEBA wants to take advantage of amidst stiff competition from established and new entrants – for which GoBEBA wants to be the go-to local solution.
GoBEBA’s Super App purposes to give customers and small businesses access to several services, including grocery shopping, gas, parcels, food and drinks via an on-demand logistics service without the need to download multiple apps (Jumia is the primary culprit here with the main app for non-food products, another one for drinks and so forth).
The platform has also partnered with localized services such as gas delivery businesses and local farmers markets such as Ngara Market, Marikiti and City Market, to mention a few. The same partnership has also been extended with Boda Bodas and Tuk-tuks.
Expansion plans are targeting Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa, Ethiopia, Ghana and Ivory Coast over the next half a decade.