Sophia Alj and Ismael Belkhayat, the married couple who founded Moroccan ecommerce platform and fintech company Chari, got the idea for the start-up from their travels through countries in sub-Saharan Africa, where they worked as consultants.
They realised these countries had the “same landscape” as Morocco, says Alj, when it came to the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector: “We all have small ‘Mom and Pop’ shops, or traditional proximity stores, and these guys have a central role in our communities.”
So, in 2020, the couple launched B2B start-up Chari, to serve unbanked corner shops in Morocco and Ivory Coast — with the aim of becoming a “leader in francophone Africa”. Based in Casablanca, it now ranks number six in this year’s FT-Statista list of the continent’s fastest growing companies.
Chari is among several businesses in a fast expanding ecommerce sector in Morocco, which enjoys Africa’s second highest internet penetration rate, according to the US International Trade Administration.
About 15,000 Moroccan shopkeepers use Chari’s app at least twice a month to order inventory for next day delivery at market prices. An associated fintech bookkeeping app, Karny, keeps track of money owed by their customers and sends them reminders by text or WhatsApp.
Corner shops, says Alj, have 85 per cent of Morocco’s FMCG market — a share, she argues, unlikely to diminish soon, largely because of the close relationships the shops have with local consumers.
“They act like a small supermarket, but the relationship is more friendly because we buy supplies for our homes on a daily basis from them, so they know our names and our kids’ names.”
Unlike big supermarkets, Mom and Pop shops “often also act like a small bank”, she explains. “You can go buy some goods and ask to pay at the end of the week because you haven’t gotten your salary yet. So they open a little tab for you.”
By giving the mostly unbanked shopkeepers the opportunity to order online and receive goods the next day, Chari makes a 10 per cent margin. It saves the shopkeepers having to wait for suppliers to visit them, or going themselves to collect goods. Karny has been licensed by the Banque du Maroc, the central bank, to offer financial services which “will go live in the summer”, enabling shopkeepers to make payments and buy services, such as microcredit and microinsurance.
However, the majority of ecommerce in Morocco is B2C, serving the final consumer directly, notes Alj. Here, the big players include the ecommerce platform Jumia, often dubbed “the Amazon of Africa”.
Francis Dufay, Jumia chief executive, says Morocco is one of the group’s top five markets despite ecommerce having only reached “a few hundred thousand people” in the country.
And, even though the total population is only 37mn, Dufay points out that “purchasing power is significantly higher than the average of African markets, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa . . . The addressable market is very big because it’s the whole middle class. So there’s still a lot of potential for growth and acceleration.”
Jumia focuses on home appliances, women’s fashion, beauty products and electronics. Most sales are cash on delivery, with few people using credit cards, Dufay says — noting that Morocco lacks options for online consumer finance.
He says that, for Jumia, the presence of many international and local brands in Morocco makes it easier to operate the company’s online marketplace. “There is a lot of supply coming to the platform which makes it easier for us because we’re between supply and demand. But it is also more challenging, because there is more competition.” Most of that competition is offline. “The challenge for us is to take customers who have their shopping habits offline, and to bring them online.”
Market research provider Euromonitor International says competition in ecommerce in Morocco is set to increase as more local firms move online: “Retail ecommerce sales are projected to soar,” it said in a 2023 report. “This growth is accompanied by a shift in consumer behaviour, with traditional retailers leveraging social media and third party marketplaces to tap into the burgeoning ecommerce market.”
Another Morocco-based company seeking to capitalise on this growing online shopping trend is YouCan, an ecommerce application platform providing entrepreneurs with technology modules to build their own online shop.
Akram Benmbarek, president and cofounder of the company, which works across the Middle East and Africa, says the “adoption of ecommerce in Morocco has been growing exponentially” but the sector is still scratching the surface in terms of potential. In 2023, YouCan merchants in Morocco had sales of $452mn up from $61mn in 2020.
Benmbarek argues that the government should help local ecommerce firms by protecting them from competition from Chinese firms that set up in Morocco “with Chinese employees, Chinese warehouses”, and with “the whole value chain” Chinese owned.
Another key factor needed by Moroccan ecommerce, he says, is an “opening up for innovation” of the presently “very opaque” digital payment processes. “The lobby of the banks is not helping,” Benmbarek says. “All the gamut of financial digital payment innovations are very difficult to establish in Morocco.”