With the coronavirus pandemic hampering a lot of physical commercial activities across the world, a lot of businesses moved into the e-commerce space to join other existing companies. However, a major challenge for these companies is delivery, especially delivery to rural communities. E-commerce companies tend to forget about rural communities when targeting audiences to become customers for their products and services. However, an e-commerce company in Kenya named Copia is doing something different. Copia is an e-commerce company based in Kenya providing consumer goods to individuals living in remote areas. Copia retails different goods, from staple foods such as corn to electronic items and motorcycles.
Copia makes life easier for people living in rural communities by providing them with affordable goods. These individuals are mostly underserved by many retail companies hence, have to travel to different towns to buy some of these items. They can sometimes travel up to 30 kilometres to purchase items such as motorcycles or electronic gadgets and sometimes do not even have the guarantee of finding the items. Majority of the purchases from Copia are household items, food items, beauty products as well as baby products. The company, however, provides other goods such as electronic appliances and construction materials amongst others. Additionally, due to the coronavirus pandemic, low earners living in rural communities are progressively beginning to use this e-commerce platform.
One of the obstacles Copia faces in serving this demographic is the poor internet access and the lack of formal postal address by residents of these communities. However, the company remains hopeful that with time these individuals will have these issues resolved.
The company also ensures the privacy and personal data of its customers are respected and protected. The information is stored safely within its Enterprise Resource Planning software. This system was sourced from Europe and is governed with all EU regulations including General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
To use Copia, customers have to log into copia.co.ke and place their orders via their smartphones or computers without the need to visit shopping centres. Customers who do not have smartphones can visit the company’s agents who will place the orders on their behalf, this makes access to Copia very simple. The orders usually take two days to deliver. The company boasts of about 12,000 agents across 15 Counties where it operates.
“Copia’s rapid growth in just five years shows the demand that exists among Kenyans in both rural and urban areas for digitally-powered solutions that make their day-to-day shopping needs easier,” said Tim Steel, Chief Executive Officer of Copia.
With payments powered and protected by Flutterwave, one of Africa’s top online payment platforms, Copia is able to make online shopping easier for Kenyans who reside in rural communities. At Flutterwave, we are on a mission to simplify payments for endless possibilities. If you run an online business, let us help you get paid across the world, reach out to us here.