A growing e-commerce platform is changing the way China and Africa do trade

A Kenyan dealer urgently needed to buy a China-made auger drilling machine at wholesale price. Fortunately, he was able to quickly find a product that fitted his needs in Amanbo Kenya operation center. Kilonzo then placed an order and completed payment on Amanbo.

Bernard Kilonzo, a Kenyan dealer, found himself in a bit of a pickle late last year: He urgently needed to buy a China-made auger drilling machine at wholesale price. Fortunately for him, he was able to quickly find a product that fitted his needs, and even got to see and try the machine before committing to buying it. Kilonzo then placed an order and completed payment, all this from the comfort of his office in Kenya.

Kilonzo did in only a few days what would have taken him weeks if not months of research and negotiations on the ground and required extensive international traveling in the past.

This feat was made possible by using Amanbo, a dedicated cross-border e-commerce platform, one of the many e-commerce companies that are stepping up efforts to transform the existing traditional Sino-African business model.

"In the past, buyers spent an average of at least two months on offline negotiations, products selection, and waiting to receive free samples by mail [to complete one order-processing cycle]. It was an extremely time-consuming process. The Amanbo e-commerce platform can significantly improve interpersonal business transactions," Liao Xuhui, CEO of Amanbo, told ChinAfrica, adding that he hoped Amanbo can become a catalyst to push forward Sino-African trade.

China's trade with Africa has soared from $10 billion in 2000 to $220 billion in 2014, and dropped to $179 billion in 2015, Chinese customs data showed. In 2015, China exported $100 billion worth of goods to the continent, with consumer goods accounting for about 18 percent of that amount.

Liao first became involved in trade with African countries in 2000. Seeing the rapid development of e-commerce in China, he had the idea of developing an online platform specially designed for China-Africa trade. In 2009, he founded Shenzhen Right Net Tech Co. Ltd., and quickly launched a market research on the viability of a cross-border e-business platform.

Through extensive investigation in more than 30 African countries, Liao came to the conclusion that China's mature e-business model could hardly be implemented in African countries due to differences in network infrastructure, product demand, and price fluctuations.

"We used to send files to our local market researchers with a transmission rate of only 5 kilobytes per second," said Liao. "Such was the normal speed of broadband Internet back then in many African countries." Liao felt there was no one-size-fits-all solution to the challenges he was facing. But he did not give up.

After years of exploring, Liao formally launched Amanbo in May 2015, which he describes as a professional e-business platform specializing in China-Africa trade. As of November 2016, Amanbo had more than 80,000 registered users, and the number keeps rising by over 200 per day.

Part of Amanbo's success can be attributed to its unique and innovative OSO (Online + Social + Offline) business model, the first of its kind in Africa. The online company has put many resources in building an offline presence in African countries, establishing operation centers as well as product showrooms in Cameroon, Kenya, Egypt, Niger, Togo, Sierra Leone and Cote d'Ivoire.

"Because of their different spending habits, it is hard for African consumers to buy goods through an e-commerce platform before actually seeing the real items," explained Liao.

"In our display halls, we have placed samples of the products that can be found online. In doing so, we earned the trust of African customers, as credibility was a key issue in traditional Sino-African trade," he said.

In the city center of Nairobi, Amanbo established an offline showroom covering an area of 500 square meters. Among the more than 5,000 kinds of Chinese products exhibited there, the best-selling items are metal parts, ceramic tiles, and mobile phones. Each product has its own QR code. When scanned, the code opens the corresponding product page on the Amanbo online platform, where customers can access price and other information.

"What we need to do is boosting new consumption patterns in Africa, and changing the traditional business practices," said Fu Ruiqiang, Director of Overseas Division with Amanbo. He added that their cross-border e-commerce platform, which has been recognized by the public, plays a major role in changing traditional buyer-seller relationships in Africa.

"The trading platform makes it easier for us to buy products at a lower price," said Abdirahman Hussein, a loyal customer of Amanbo from Kenya, who has been purchasing regulators and inverters from China and then selling them to Kenya.

On November 24, 2015, Amanbo, in partner with the Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KNCCI), the country's largest business organization, launched the Kenya-China Import and Export E-commerce Platform in Nairobi. Amanbo signed a strategic cooperation agreement with KNCCI, which is aimed at ensuring strict scrutiny of quality of import and export products for both sides.

Cameroonian Kennas Kiamba, a frequent user of Amanbo, has placed numerous orders of wigs and clothes on the platform over the years for sales across the continent. He does not worry at all about the quality of the products he purchases, mainly because he was able to get his hands on samples beforehand at the exhibition hall.

Liao employs strict quality controls throughout his e-commerce platform operation. "Don't produce low-quality products, because it is a road to nowhere," he said.

"Amanbo is an e-commerce platform primarily designed for wholesalers in African markets, because many African countries still lack an efficient logistics system, and it is now too difficult to follow the B2C (business to consumer) business model," Chen Fan, Manager with Amanbo's Department of Investment, told ChinAfrica.

With the development of logistics and Internet in Africa, Amanbo is planning to develop a dedicated B2C platform in certain African countries in the next few years, but only if conditions are ripe, said Chen.

In a keynote speech at the 2014 World Economic Forum on Africa in Abuja, Nigeria, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said China will encourage Chinese enterprises to explore new opportunities for e-commerce cooperation with Africa in accordance with market principles so as to make it easier for the continent to enjoy the convenience of information sharing and big data, as do other regions around the world.

As the number of registered users increases, along with the rapid construction of overseas outlets and warehouses, Amanbo is getting more and more Chinese and African merchants to enjoy the convenience of international e-commerce.

"I hope that our cross-border e-commerce platform can bring more opportunities for China-Africa trade, while playing a bigger role in promoting the transformation and upgrading of traditional trade," said Liao.

A growing e-commerce platform is changing the way China and ...