How RwandaMart hosts, manages online sales promoting e-commerce

Inkomoko, in collaboration with GIZ, organised an open day event at the E-Commerce Centre on Thursday, November 17, to showcase to entrepreneurs and stakeholders its support in driving e-commerce in Rwanda. These services are done through RwandaMart, a platform which hosts and manages multiple online sales channels that enable local entrepreneurs to sell their products and services online in Rwanda and internationally. The platform is operated by the E-Commerce Centre (ECC) and is supported by various technical partners. During the event, stakeholders were able to gain practical understanding of RwandaMart, a platform developed with technical support from the GIZ Invest for Jobs program. Attendees were taken through a live demonstration of how clients can view and purchase products on RwandaMart, how entrepreneurs can get new clients, and why business owners should find value in listing their products on the platform, among other things. According to Aretha Rwagasore, the Managing Director of Inkomoko Rwanda, up to 380 SMEs have been recruited to the platform. “We are proud to have recruited 380 SMEs to the RwandaMart platform, which exceeded our target. We hope the event will create more visibility for RwandaMart and highlight its potential to drive e-commerce in Rwanda. We aim to inspire more entrepreneurs by linking them to this ecosystem of entrepreneurs,” Rwagasore said. Speaking to The New Times, some of the entrepreneurs who use RwandaMart praised the impact of e-commerce on businesses. For instance, Joyeuse Uwitonze, the Co-founder of G&Jmax, an enterprise making hand-made home decorations, kitchen tools, among other products, said that through RwandaMart, she got to know more about trading online, how to use digital marketing channels and how to get more customers from abroad. Her counterpart, Chris Munyankindi, the Co-founder of Bwiza Coffee Group, said the use of e-commerce has made the process of making sales easier for them, especially considering the fact that their company is based upcountry. Our production unit is located in Nyabihu, and it’s somehow far from many of our clients. So, working with RwandaMart makes our work easier because we bring our products to the store and only share the link for clients to buy online, he noted. Haben Sebhatu, the owner of Vital Foods, a company that sells healthy organic food products, also has a good story to tell about RwandaMart. “Using e-commerce helped me a lot in different ways. It helped me to promote my products and they got to be known by different people. I got new customers through it, she said. The customers can always reach out to me because my products are on the website 24 hours, which is a very nice thing, she added.

News

How RwandaMart hosts, manages online sales promoting e-commerce