07 Sep 2020

As Botswana continues to integrate into a digital economy, Skymart Bw has seen growth in its e-commerce business.

Speaking during a press conference in Gaborone recently, chief executive officer of Skymart, Mr Christopher Benn, said the company had grown considerably since inception in 2012 recording 300 per cent growth in sales since April.

He said their online market place had 300 merchants with over 400 product listings on the platform, noting that the online platform was rapidly expanding to regional and international markets and thus allowed Batswana sellers to list their products into outside markets.

He encouraged Batswana entrepreneurs to list their products on the online platform to improve their exposure in other markets especially during times when COVID-19 pandemic was impacting on businesses.

He also said with their seller programme, sellers would improve the export position of the country allowing for markets expansion in previously non-served markets where he believed Batswana products had the potential to thrive.

He said the company had largely benefitted from linkages with other big international e-commerce platforms outside the country.

According to Mr Benn, Batswana were slowly becoming less suspicious transacting online as more and more people had begun shopping on the platform, a trend which had begun when the COVID pandemic hit the country.

He noted that transacting on the platform was relatively safe since the transactions were safeguarded by third party banking security protocols, saying such reduced fraud cases in online shopping. 

He said Skymart’s market-place serviced a large geographical area including Kasane and Maun, which prompted the company to ramp up their delivery processes.

He said Skymart was a member of Botswana Innovation Hub, which had largely being instrumental in facilitating their operation on the country by helping them with the necessary regulatory and licensing instrument to startup the e-commerce platform.

“Currently, we’re consulting with Botswana government to see how best to regulate the e-commerce which is a difficult area to regulate,” he said. Ends