In June 2016, Africa Internet Group (AIG) rebranded all its e-commerce subsidiaries to Jumia in an effort to shore up the company’s marketing efforts while cashing in on the vast brand recognition Jumia possessed. Jovago became Jumia Travel, Lamudi became Jumia House, Carmudi became Jumia Cars, Everjobs became Jumia Jobs, Vendito became Jumia Deals, Hello Food became Jumia Food and Kaymu became Jumia Market.
Jumia Market (Kaymu) was launched back in 2013 as an online market place. The platform was meant to allow merchants to sell their products through it.
In May 2017, Jumia Market had a change in course and shifted focus from electronics and phones to fashion. During the “launch event”, the company announced that it wanted to become an “online social shopping platform… the new Instagram of e-commerce”.
Well, truth be told, things have not been going well for Jumia Group as a whole. Rocket, one of the companies that invested in AIG, reported a dip in their revenue that was attributed ti Jumia’s losses. This was back in April 2017.
Well, news just broke that Jumia Market has laid off approximately 80-percent of its staff. Nigerian tech blog, Techpoint, reports that Jumia Market’s staff of 70 personnel now only has 15 left. The blog also reports that only the engineering team is left and this is because they are rerouting all Jumia Market’s traffic to Jumia’s main site.
This is a big hit to Jumia Group and AIG by extension. There’s no official word from the company, however, at the time of publishing, Jumia Market’s Kenyan website is still functional.
