Ecommerce merges Mums Village with Baby Bliss

Bliss Group Africa.: Mothering and childcare focused e-commerce companies BabyBliss Nigeria and MumsVillage Kenya have merged to create a pan-African entity

Ecommerce merges Mums Village with Baby Bliss Childcare-focused e-commerce companies MumsVillage Kenya and BabyBliss Nigeria Mothering have merged to create a pan-African entity, Bliss Group Africa, providing what they say is an “unparalleled omnichannel commerce, community and content offering”. The mum and baby e-commerce opportunity currently stands at an estimated $2 billion in Kenya and $5 billion in Nigeria. Thanks to COVID-19, the e-commerce market has experienced explosive growth. What began as a trend has now become a behemoth estimated to grow at over 60 per cent in both markets.…

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Instagram Rolls Out New Feature For Crowdfunding

Instagram Fundraiser

Instagram Rolls Out New Feature For Crowdfunding Instagram rolls out new personal features for crowdfunding. The coronavirus pandemic has upsurged the number of crowdfunding campaigns for hospital bills, funeral expenses, and other coronavirus-related causes, and now Instagram has announced Personal Fundraiser, a new tool that lets users raise money for personal causes. Soon people in the US, UK, and Ireland to raise money for their own personal causes. The company is launching the feature today as an initial test on Android phones, with iPhones to follow, after already making personal…

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Opinion: Factors that will likely shape ecommerce in the second half of 2020

COVID 19 Read consumer

As we enter the second half of 2020, Dan Barker examines the key trends that are set to shape ecommerce, and how retailers can respond to them. The first half of 2020 has been eventful for ecommerce. Of course technical innovation has progressed: Shopify launched a marketplace, Google relaunched organic product listings, Facebook introduced ‘shops’, and thousands of other changes. But much of the first half of 2020 was shaped by a disease named after 2019. The effects of ‘SARS2’ on ecommerce are tough to overstate. Tens of thousands of…

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Central Bank of Kenya Declines to cap the free M-Pesa transactions to five

M-Gas Mpesa Central Bank of Kenya

Kenya’s leading telco Safaricom has lost the bid to cap free M-Pesa transactions to five. This comes after subscribers split high-value transfers to avoid paying transfer fees, costing it billions of shillings in revenues. The company had petitioned the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) to cap the number of multiple transactions between two numbers, according to a recent disclosure of conference call transcripts between Safaricom and investors seen by the Business Daily. Safaricom reported that customers were splitting high-value money transfers of as high as Sh60,000 to deals of below…

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Opera’s Opay Pulls Plug on ORide, OCar, Shifts focus to eCommerce & payments

Opera’s Opay Pulls Plug on ORide, OCar, Shifts focus to eCommerce & payments

News earlier in the week broke that Opera-backed Nigerian fintech startup, OPay has reportedly shut down all its business operations in Nigeria following a letter issued by its foreign investors amidst the poor economic climate caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.. A report claims that all verticals of the startup, including ride hailing, ORide and OTrike — which were still active in other states aside Lagos; the recently launched B2B and B2C eCommerce platforms, OMall and OTrade; OExpress for logistics; and food delivery feature, OFood will be closed down. Opay launched…

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Amazon to manufacture self-driving cars after acquiring start-up Zoox for $1bn

Amazon to manufacture self-driving cars after acquiring start-up Zoox for $1bn

Amazon is making strides into developing its own self-driving vehicles, agreeing to buy Californian start-up Zoox in a deal said to be worth more than $1bn (£810m). The takeover was first reported by tech website The Information and was later confirmed by Amazon.  Talks were said to have started between the two companies last month. Zoox’s chief executive Aicha Evans and chief technology officer Jesse Levinson will continue to lead the team as a standalone business after the deal has completed, Amazon said. The takeover is believed to be part of Amazon’s plans to begin…

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Power Panel at DCA WebForum voice their thoughts on impact of COVID-19 SME Financing in Africa

DCA WebForum Series 3 Executive Roundtable The Impact of COVID-19 on SME Financing in Africa

The DCA Group hosted an engaging and insightful Executive Roundtable conversation, with Top Industry and Business Leaders and Representatives of SMEs operating in African countries, as businesses and individuals globally seek solutions for the COVID 19 crisis to innovative ways to achieve their goals. The panel of distinguished speakers exchanged expert insights, practical approaches and good practices on the topic: The real effects on the ground for SME’s; the plans that are being implemented to curb further negative effects on the market; future strategies that organizations can rely on to…

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Digital WhatsApp Payments for SMEs launched, Pilots in Brazil

Digital WhatsApp Payments for SMEs launched, Pilots in Brazil

Facebook has launched its WhatsApp payments service in Brazil, enabling people to send money and make purchases from within the chat app. You use it by linking up your WhatsApp account to your Visa or Mastercard credit or debit card. This now adds Facebook as one of the digital payments and mobile money providers like Mpesa WhatsApp began testing P2P payments in India in 2018 but Brazil, where the messaging service has 120 million users, becomes the first country to get a nationwide rollout. Brazil would be the first to…

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Dropbox enhances cloud storage by adding password manager and vault security features

Dropbox has unveiled a range of new features aimed at making the storage site more of a one-stop shop for subscribers.

Dropbox has unveiled a range of new features aimed at making the storage site more of a one-stop shop for subscribers. Several of the features have security in mind, while others are designed to make the site more effective for home and business users. On the security front, Dropbox is adding its own password manager. Known simply as Dropbox Passwords, the app saves your passwords in what the company describes as a “safe place” and then automatically enters them when you need to sign into websites and apps. Your saved…

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Rush to Digitization during the COVID 19 Crisis Should perpetuate financial exclusion

Digitization

Rush to Digitization during the COVID 19 Crisis Should perpetuate financial exclusion.The economic effect of the current global COVID-19 lockdown will be severe. An essential focus for supporting the economic rebound is to invest in efforts to deepen economic integration and further lower trade costs. Digitization, and the creation of specialized ecosystems, will be the single most efficient approach to reduce trade cost on a global scale, which will benefit all countries currently impacted by COVID-19. A robust technical infrastructure and end-to-end digital processes (“paper-less”) are key elements to safeguard…

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