The Covid-19 global crisis has created a difficult time for everyone, particularly the poor and those who run and rely on small businesses as a source of income.
Lockdown restrictions are easing slowly. However, everyone understands that infections will increase. Social distancing, restricted physical contact, restricted movement and virtual working has become the order of the day. Many businesses are also struggling to recover from the losses made during lock down. This means that businesses cannot stay open in the normal way, and increasingly need to look at different ways of working. Embracing technologies like e-commerce is one way of helping businesses survive during this pandemic.
Unfortunately, too many businesses still struggle with embracing this kind of technology. Also, existing platforms are either too costly (by taking large commissions which eat into already constrained revenue), too complicated, too restrictive, or have rigid compliance rules and/ or penalties which many small businesses just cannot afford. It is for this reason that the Partnership for a Digital Africa (P4DA) decided to create the Digital Africa Neighbourhood Market. The objective of the market is to give any business of any type or scale, an easy to use platform that allows them to trade, using the latest digital tools.
The P4DA has created a simple, no fuss platform that makes it easy for businesses to trade online. Our objective is to allow businesses of any size and in any community to trade online – without needing to have any technical skills or incurring costs to have their own online stores developed. We also encourage local ecosystems and inclusive growth. This is one of the reasons why we have also asked businesses to handle aspects like deliveries themselves or via members of their own communities. This allows them to keep their costs lower and ensure that all economic benefits flow back into their community.