Inclusive E-commerce Isn’t Just a Social Good - It’s a Smart Growth Strategy
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Inclusive E-commerce Isn’t Just a Social Good - It’s a Smart Growth Strategy
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Aug 2025
E-commerce is often hailed as a democratizing force, one that lowers barriers and expands market access for sellers of all sizes. Yet across much of Africa’s digital trade landscape, the reality is more exclusionary than inclusive. Today’s dominant e-commerce platforms (many of them homegrown) are built for scale, not equity. They tend to prioritize urban sellers with marketing budgets, formal business registration, and digital fluency, largely because these profiles are easier to onboard, verify, and monetize. Meanwhile, informal and rural entrepreneurs, who often lack such resources but drive much of the continent’s economic engine, are overlooked. This is not just an equity issue; it’s a missed market opportunity.
Across sub-Saharan Africa, the informal economy accounts for over 80% of employment and up to 55% of GDP. Yet the very entrepreneurs who drive this activity often face insurmountable barriers to selling online. Many lack digital IDs or consistent internet access. Others are unfamiliar with platform interfaces and can’t afford fulfillment services. Women entrepreneurs, who are more likely to be informally employed than men, are often locked out by social norms, juggling care burdens and time poverty.
In response to these constraints, a growing number of informal MSMEs are turning to social media platforms, such as Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, as their primary sales channels. These platforms offer a more accessible entry point into digital trade. They require no formal registration, demand minimal digital literacy, and accommodate familiar practices like cash-on-delivery and messaging-based sales. Data from six African countries shows that 60% of micro-enterprises, 49% of small enterprises, and 33% of medium enterprises sell exclusively through social commerce. In contrast, formal e-commerce platforms are often built on assumptions that users are urban, banked, and tech-savvy, assumptions that simply don’t reflect the lived realities of most informal sellers.
By designing primarily for already-advantaged users, digital marketplaces are unintentionally capping their own growth. When platforms exclude, they not only narrow their addressable market but also face lower seller retention. Inclusive e-commerce, on the other hand, is a smart growth strategy. Platforms that proactively reduce barriers for underserved entrepreneurs—through simplified onboarding, vernacular interfaces, peer support mechanisms, and cash-based payment options—can unlock wider seller participation and retention. In short, inclusion drives stickiness.
Consider China’s Taobao Villages, rural communities where over 10% of households participate in online selling. What began as grassroots digital adoption quickly scaled into a national movement: from 20 villages in 2013 to over 3,200 across 27 provinces by 2018. Alibaba’s success wasn’t driven by platform features alone; it invested in local ecosystems: digital training hubs, logistics support, peer mentors, and government partnerships. By embedding inclusion into the operating model, Alibaba didn’t just unlock rural commerce; it secured platform loyalty, diversified its seller base, and expanded its rural market footprint.
The business case was clear: e-commerce households reported incomes up to 80% higher than their non-participating peers. Women and youth, long marginalized in rural labor markets, became key players; nearly half of online sellers were female, and 75% were under 30. The takeaway is not just that inclusion is possible - it’s profitable.
Other markets are learning from this. In Brazil, the Favela 3D initiative, led by NGO Gerando Falcões, is digitizing informal settlements through Wi-Fi access, vocational training, and entrepreneurship support. A key innovation was working with broadband providers to install high-speed community internet nodes in areas previously ignored by telecoms. Here again, digital inclusion is framed not as charity, but as market development, building local capacity to participate in Brazil’s growing digital economy.
Across Africa, similar sparks are emerging. Nigeria’s Tech Herfrica helps rural women traders access mobile tools, online marketplaces, and digital skills training. South Africa’s Basket Ecommerce aggregates fresh produce orders from township vendors, offering next-day delivery and lowering costs. Pan-African platforms like Ananse connect African artisans directly with diaspora buyers, expanding market reach far beyond local foot traffic. These models remain early-stage, but they show what’s possible when platforms are designed for accessibility.
What unites these efforts isn’t just technology; it’s friction reduction by design. Mobile-first interfaces, peer learning networks, localized content, and flexible payment and logistics systems all enable users to onboard, transact, and thrive. When platforms are designed with users rather than for them, inclusion becomes a default, removing the guesswork, reducing drop-off, and creating durable growth pathways.
And inclusion must extend beyond sellers. Buyers in underserved areas face their own hurdles: limited trust in online systems, poor delivery coverage, and rigid payment models. Platforms that localize delivery points, allow for cash-on-delivery, and build trust through community partnerships don’t just serve the marginalized; they grow their total addressable market. In fragmented markets, accessibility is a competitive edge.
Governments and donors can accelerate this shift. In China, Alibaba’s village model was enabled by public co-investment in connectivity, logistics, and training. African governments could adopt similar strategies: offering tax breaks to platforms that serve rural sellers, embedding digital modules in MSME programs, and mandating disaggregated data reporting on seller participation. Donors, meanwhile, can de-risk early-stage models by supporting infrastructure, subsidizing onboarding, and funding digital literacy at the margins.
The question for platforms is no longer whether to include, it’s whether they can afford not to. Growth concentrated in capital cities isn’t scale, it’s saturation. By continuing to build for the few, platforms limit both their relevance and resilience. In an increasingly competitive market, platforms that design for equity stand to gain not just reach but revenue, retention, and reputation.
Inclusion, in this sense, is not a trade-off. It’s a business asset and one that, when activated intentionally, grows the pie for everyone.