An East African summit for formal retail operators on Thursday called for adoption of e-commerce to avert an ‘Uber’ effect on their businesses.
Speaking at Villa Rosa Kempinski Hotel in Nairobi, Uchumi Supermarket chief executive Julius Kipng’etich and Nakumatt’s regional strategy and operations director, Mr Ramamurthy Thiagarajan, said operators must closely monitor consumer preferences to guide their future engagements with their clients.
“To say you have 30 years experience in running a supermarket could be the fatal pill for your business since now we have tablets, the Internet and mobile phones that are used to communicate and also make payments,” said Mr Kipng’etich.
Mr Thiagarajan said Nakumatt had made major inroads in studying customer trends, where it realised that 67 per cent of its clients were repeat shoppers who enjoy patronising specific stores and purchasing certain items.
“This has helped us sell ourselves as a brand aggressively across our branches in East Africa – Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda, since people believe we will always have what they are looking for,” he told the gathering.
EMERGING TRENDS
The summit, convened to look into emerging trends in East Africa, heard that online stores were fast moving into the region where young shoppers prefer to go on the web and compare prices before placing orders for the select items.
Retail Traders Association of Kenya chief executive Wambui Mbarire called on retailers to join the association to enhance their bargaining power on policy and taxation issues, adding that the sector had emerged as one of the largest employers and taxpayers.
With devolution taking root across Kenya, retail operators should look national when planning their future investments, said Mrs Mbarire.
The summit chairman, Mr Christopher Maina, stressed the importance of adopting new technologies in payments and trade transactions, saying young people prefer to converse via social media.
Source: Daily Nation

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