“E-commerce has the power to build up the economy, fight poverty”

From a beauty pageant to an e-commerce workshop, to a vision from 2013- Sanele Simmons the Founder of Mall for Women spoke about her extraordinary journey into e-commerce in an interview with Lakshmi Ajay of STAT Media Group at the Air Cargo Africa 2023 held in Johannesburg, South Africa recently.

Sanele started up during the pandemic, has gone on to partner with DHL and several international chambers of commerce to enable more women sellers to list on the portal. Sanele talks about how e-commerce platforms like hers are plugging the trust deficit that consumers in Africa have had with online shopping. With a growing internet and smartphone penetration, online payment gateways, a younger demographic that is used to faster rates of tech adoption, Sanele sees air cargo as a co-collaborator for solving Africa’s last mile issues and a beneficiary of the growing demand for global commerce seen in recent years.