AFRICA – DHL Express, a courier company, announced that their e-commerce platform eShop is now available in 14 additional countries across the region.

The countries include Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Chad, Ethiopia, Guinea, Lesotho, Liberia, Mali, Namibia, Niger, Sudan, and Togo.

This increases the platform’s reach to 34 countries across sub-Saharan Africa that was launched in April 2019. South Africa was one of the first countries where the eShop was launched.

Since its initial introduction, the DHL Africa eShop app has seen its user base grow rapidly, and within the first three months of operation, it had already been rolled out to 20 countries across Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

Hennie Heymans, chief executive of DHL Express sub-Saharan Africa, said that the user uptake on the DHL Africa eShop app has been remarkable over the last five months, not only from the number of downloads, but also, from an order perspective.

“DHL adopted a phased approach for the rollout of the platform on the continent, with the initial launch implemented in 11 countries to test the market’s reaction.

“Within the first seven weeks, the response from the consumer market was so impressive, that the second phase was initiated – which added 9 more countries to the list. Now we are once again able to build on that momentum, with the biggest single rollout phase so far,” said Heymans.

He adds that while Africa’s ecommerce market is still lagging behind the rest of the globe in terms of annual turnover, it may well make significant strides to catching up in the near future.

The DHL Africa eShop app offers African consumers unprecedented access to international retailers on an easy-to-use platform, with great convenience and speed. It also enables many global brands to connect with a captive African market.

The DHL Africa eShop enables African customers to shop directly from over 200 American and UK-based online retailers, with purchases delivered to their door, by DHL Express. This solution was developed in partnership with Link Commerce – a division of Mall for Africa.

DHL is well positioned to connect African consumers with these exciting global brands. “We are committed to driving e-commerce growth on the continent for retailers as they work to expose their brands to international markets and also for consumers, who want easy access to global brands,” concluded Heymans.