5 min read
Pakistan’s e-commerce market has grown steadily over the past five years, accelerated by Internet penetration and smartphone usage. This infrastructural growth has created opportunities for a broad spectrum of new-age startups and companies from e-commerce delivery and online payment, to e-stores, travel and groceries.
Varying figures put the Pakistani e-commerce market at a paltry $30 million of gross merchandize value annually; however, projections have the online shopping spend in Pakistan growing to over $600 million by 2020. With 30 million 3G/4G users in Pakistan, 2.2 million broadband users and 12.6 million monthly active users on social media, the numbers hold a promise for all new startups looking for opportunities to explore the e-commerce marketplace.
What is Jambo.pk?
The latest addition to online shopping in Pakistan, Jambo.pk has entered the market with a goal to make shopping ‘fun.’ A customer-focused initiative, Jambo.pk has the pedigree with Arpatech, Pakistan’s leading technology company, behind it.
Jambo.pk is currently incubated under Arpatech Technology Ventures (ATV), which is providing the organization technical and financial support. The venture was launched with a Beta Version on December 1st, 2015, with a strong execution plan and vision to become the market leader in consumer e-commerce transactions across Pakistan.
Jambo.pk’s soft launch was initiated with a 5,000 SKU (Stock Keeping Units) catalog. Currently, the organization has a limited on-line and off-line marketing outreach effort, as products and catalogs are constantly refined and improved based upon user metrics and feedback.
Incubated under a technology company, developing its e-commerce (website and mobile) platform was a simple enough task. However, assembling an exclusive product line and bringing top brands on board posed a greater challenge for the team. The team targeted 25,000 SKUs as a baseline prior to launch, a goal they are close to achieving despite having a nuanced approach: instead of filling up the product line with replicas and low-end, mass-produced items, but higher end products that are available through quality shopping channels.
The target is expected to be attained in April with 25,000 high quality products available nationally, with a delivery time not exceeding 72 hours from order to delivery. Jambo.pk believes the large catalog and quality products to be their unique selling point.
Farhan Ismail, Project Manager for Jambo.pk, points out: “It (SKU count) is a worthy achievement in itself as main stream e-commerce sites have 30,000 varying quality SKUs even after years of operations. This speaks to the strength of our technology teams at ATV and Arpatech.”
Another achievement of the venture is to tap exclusive brands that will be launching themselves online through the Jambo.pk platform. But the team refused to reveal brand names, saying it would spoil the surprise.
Despite it being currently in its pilot phase, Jambo.pk’s organic traffic has managed to penetrate the consumer market and orders are growing on a daily basis. In the beta phase, ‘Appliances & Electronics’ have emerged as the most popular product category, surprising the team, as among others, Jambo.pk also offers some of the best prices for buying laptops online. The venture is targeting cities where people are financially capable of exploring exclusive products, but lack the access to broad shopping avenues.
Jambo.pk follows a customer-first ethos and client satisfaction is central to its operating vision. Fast delivery, and product quality is delivered to minimize returns, a key challenge for many existing e-commerce players. With Arpatech as a back stop to Jambo.pk’s effort, customers should feel safe and comfortable in conducting transactions.
How is Jambo.pk operating?
Jambo.pk is part of the ATV group, which enables the organization to leverage world class skills in areas of technology, delivery, supply chain, data analytics, and digital outreach. With Arpatech providing the technology backbone, ATV teams covering data and supply chain, and sister concerns like Forrun providing the last mile logistics, the expectations for this new entrant are strong. This capability has already enabled the ATV group to build and lead the e-grocery market place (volume of orders and product SKUs) with their Tazamart.pk effort.
With the tagline “shopping made fun”, Jambo.pk is succeeding in its plans to provide a complete shopping experience by keeping the buyer/customer central to the execution plan. The full version of the portal is expected to be launched mid 2016, after a rigorous 6-month beta phase where many changes to both the technology platform as well as back-end operations are expected to give Jambo.pk the market leading position. In the meantime, buyers are still able to buy from Jambo.pk through a platform and process that already is market leading. We can only wonder where Jambo.pk will be post its beta stage.
Why shop at Jambo.pk?
- Exclusive brands with over 25,000 products to choose from
- Quicker delivery through Forrun
- Fun filled, interactive shopping experience
- Efficient customer support
The team did not want to disclose the investment they have received (since Jambo.pk is an ATV internal company), nor did they give away the average number of orders delivered per week. However, they insinuated that the number of orders is enough to keep them busy and they never expected the volume of orders Jambo.pk is processing at this early stage. With leading online brands like EatOye, Sheops, TazaMart, Forrun, Jambo.pk, TripKar and InvestorsLounge, Arpatech Technology Ventures (ATV) has quietly become the powerhouse of the e-commerce world in Pakistan.
