A hidden pipeline brings Amazon and Walmart to African shoppers

DAKAR, July 14 (Reuters) - No bank card. Shoppers in Africa increasingly are buying online from big brands such as Amazon or Walmart even though they have no physical presence on much of the continent.

By Jessica Donati DAKAR, July 14 (Reuters) - No bank card? No address?

No problem. Shoppers in Africa increasingly are buying online from big brands such as Amazon or Walmart even though they have no physical presence on much of the continent. Among those benefiting from the shift are local and foreign package-forwarding companies that use technology and increasing internet penetration in Africa to overcome hurdles, including a lack of formal street addresses and customers with no access to traditional banks.

One is Senegalese startup, Afrety, which provides a snapshot of how Africa's shoppers can rely on intermediaries to buy from the United States, Europe and China and receive the package at their doorstep. DELIVERING WITHOUT AN ADDRESS Afrety's service provides shoppers with delivery addresses at warehouses in France, the United States and China. Multiple purchases can be consolidated for each customer and repackaged for dispatch to West Africa.

On arrival, customs duties are paid, benefiting local governments. Customers without bank cards can pay by digital, mobile money accounts that can be charged with cash at kiosks. Mobile money is used widely in Senegal, along with other parts of Africa, instead of conventional banking.

Once the packages arrive in Senegal, motorbikes and vans parked outside Afrety's depot deliver using GPS across a major city like Dakar. "You have to be very, very, very flexible. That's the key word," Souane Diop, the 34-year-old CEO, told Reuters, outside his depot filled with packages labelled Amazon and other international brands.

Diop said the company started in 2018 with the aim of connecting informal networks of air travellers between France and Senegal. From small beginnings it has grown to four to five metric tons by air and two to three containers by sea each week. To keep costs low, Afrety rents its warehouse in France and uses partners in the U.S. and China to handle trade there.

A REVOLUTION IN ONLINE SHOPPING IN AFRICA Global logistics company Aramex is a much bigger rival, operating two platforms with overlapping services. Whereas Afrety grew out of the deep connections between Senegal and former colonial power France, which has a large Senegalese diaspora population, Aramex in Sub-Saharan Africa relies on MyUS, which began by providing goods for U.S. expatriates living in Africa. Aramex acquired MyUS in 2022 and in addition runs a platform that it created, Shop and Ship, which also delivers to many countries on the continent.