Kilimall plans Black Friday to increase market share in Africa

Kilimall International, a Chinese-backed online store, is gearing up for another mega-online promotional event, dubbed Black Friday, in a bid to tap into the Christmas season early.

The online company is already running promotions promising shoppers huge deals and discounts while announcing for the first time that customers will also be able to redeem vouchers during the season running from November 20-30.

Confirming the news, the company said deals will be offered in all the three markets, namely Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda.

"This is a path worth the talk," says Tao Yang, the CEO. "Through this initiative, Kilimall has shown it remains customer-oriented. It's thanks to our customers' feedback that we have carried out this restructuring, leading to the launch of quality month movement in October this year," he said.

The CEO said the move saw the re-examination of almost all its sellers on the platform scaling out poor quality suppliers. In addition, the company has closed down pay-on delivery method and instead supports the pre-pay system.

According to Norah Akello, the head of Kenya business, the move was necessitated by heightened insecurity created by handling huge sums of cash, reluctance by sellers to release high-value items and delayed order fulfillment rates.

"Our analysis reveals that eight out of every 10 customers are happy with the current services proving beyond reasonable doubt this move was a big step up," she said.

Among the many moves that the online company has taken is customer appreciation strategy where it is offering redeemable cash rewards worth one million dollars and discounted deals including and not limited to up to 80 percent off across the three markets.

In August, the online shopping platform bagged exclusive rights to market new Infinix and Tecno Smartphone brands.

Last year in December, it rolled out full-scale operations in Nigeria and Uganda after operating in the Kenyan market for three years.

Contact the writer at lucymorangi@chinadaily.com.cn