Africa’s e-commerce opportunity is often described in terms of population growth, smartphone adoption and the rapid expansion of digital payments.
But for many businesses, the hardest part begins after they have succeeded in selling online at home.
The real challenge is selling efficiently to a customer in another African country.
Moving a product across a border requires much more than a website or marketplace listing. Payments have to work. Goods have to move reliably. Customs procedures have to be understood. Customers need confidence in the seller. Businesses need access to working capital, data and logistics networks.
This is increasingly becoming the central question for African digital commerce: not simply how to put more businesses online, but how to make regional e-commerce work at scale.
UN Trade and Development, or UNCTAD, identifies several interconnected conditions for effective e-commerce ecosystems, including ICT infrastructure, payments, logistics and trade facilitation, legal frameworks, skills and access to finance.
For African SMEs hoping to use the African Continental Free Trade Area to reach customers beyond their domestic markets, weaknesses in any one of these areas can become a barrier to growth.
The problem is no longer simply getting businesses online
African businesses have made significant progress in adopting digital tools.
Social commerce, mobile money, marketplaces, WhatsApp-based selling and digital advertising have lowered the barriers to reaching customers.
But domestic digital commerce and cross-border digital commerce are very different propositions.
A Senegalese merchant may be able to market a product online to a customer in Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana or Kenya within minutes. Completing the transaction economically and reliably is considerably harder.
The business has to answer several questions.
- Can the customer pay easily?
- Can the seller receive the money without excessive foreign-exchange costs?
- How will the product clear customs?
- Which logistics provider will deliver it?
- What happens if the customer returns the product?
- How can the seller assess demand before investing in inventory?
- How can both parties trust a transaction conducted across different legal and payment systems?
These obstacles help explain why African e-commerce remains fragmented despite strong underlying demand.
UNCTAD has repeatedly highlighted transport and logistics, payment systems, cybersecurity, skills and consumer trust as persistent constraints on digital commerce in developing markets.
The challenge can therefore be reduced to four things that have to move efficiently across borders:
money, goods, data and trust.
Payments remain a critical part of the equation
Cross-border payments have historically been one of the most difficult pieces of intra-African commerce.
Businesses trading between African countries have often had to rely on correspondent banking arrangements and hard currencies even when both buyer and seller operate in African currencies.
The Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS) is designed to address some of this friction.
Developed by Afreximbank in collaboration with the AfCFTA Secretariat, PAPSS enables participating financial institutions and payment providers to facilitate cross-border transactions using African currencies.
Its relevance for SMEs is straightforward: regional e-commerce becomes easier when businesses can receive payments more directly instead of routing every transaction through complex international settlement chains.
But payment interoperability alone will not solve the problem.
Logistics can determine whether an online sale is profitable
A digital transaction still frequently ends with a physical product.
That makes logistics one of the most important — and often underestimated — elements of African e-commerce.
For a small company, an online order can become commercially unattractive if delivery costs are high, addresses are difficult to verify, customs procedures are unpredictable or returns are expensive.
Last-mile delivery is particularly important.
Large e-commerce businesses can invest in warehouses, fulfilment centres, delivery fleets and technology. SMEs generally cannot.
They depend on logistics partners and need sufficiently predictable costs to price products before customers place orders.
UNCTAD’s e-commerce readiness work consistently treats logistics and trade facilitation as core components of digital commerce alongside payments and connectivity.
This is why Africa’s e-commerce infrastructure cannot be understood purely as digital infrastructure.
Warehouses, customs systems, roads, delivery networks and physical distribution remain part of the digital transaction.
AfCFTA creates a market, but businesses still need the infrastructure to use it
The African Continental Free Trade Area creates the possibility of a much larger continental market.
For SMEs, the strategic opportunity is significant.
Instead of treating a national market as the endpoint of growth, a business can potentially identify demand in neighbouring countries, reach customers digitally and gradually build a regional distribution strategy.
But implementation matters more than theory.
A company still has to understand product standards, customs procedures, taxes, payment options, local preferences and distribution channels.
For many smaller companies, market entry therefore works better through local partnerships than through attempts to operate every element of the transaction independently.
That means AfCFTA’s e-commerce potential will depend partly on the growth of an ecosystem of logistics companies, payment providers, fintechs, marketplaces, customs technology companies and local distributors.
AI may matter most behind the scenes
Artificial intelligence is often discussed in African commerce in terms of chatbots, content creation and customer service.
Its more significant economic impact may be less visible.
AI can help companies make decisions about inventory, logistics, fraud and demand.
For example, an online retailer with sufficient historical sales data can use forecasting systems to estimate demand by product and geography.
Better demand forecasting can reduce two expensive problems: unsold inventory and stock shortages.
Logistics companies can use similar techniques to predict volumes, optimise delivery routes and allocate vehicles more efficiently.
AI can also support:
- demand forecasting;
- fraud detection;
- payment risk assessment;
- inventory optimisation;
- dynamic pricing;
- customer segmentation;
- warehouse management;
- route optimisation;
- credit assessment; and
- business intelligence.
The important distinction is that AI cannot compensate for weak underlying infrastructure.
A sophisticated demand forecast has limited value if a merchant cannot receive payment or reliably deliver the product.
AI should therefore be viewed as one layer of a broader commerce infrastructure rather than as a substitute for payments, logistics and trade facilitation.
Dakar summit aims to move from discussion to transactions
These challenges will form part of the agenda at the E-Business International Summit (EBIS) 2026, scheduled for 26–27 November at CICES in Dakar, Senegal.
Organisers say the second edition is expected to bring together more than 1,000 participants, at least 25 speakers and representatives from more than 15 countries.
Confirmed speakers currently include Moussa Dia, CEO of iTech Solutions; Ibrahima Nour Eddine Diagne, CEO of GAINDE 2000 and Vice-President of the Pan-Asian E-commerce Alliance; and Ndèye Awa Gueye, a specialist in innovation and impact financing at LuxDev.
The programme is being organised around e-commerce, logistics, digital solutions and AI, with discussions expected to cover AfCFTA, PAPSS, supply chains, last-mile delivery, fintech, retail intelligence and social commerce.
One change from the inaugural 2025 edition is the planned introduction of a dedicated Business & Investment Deal Room.
According to EBIS President Assane Pathe Diop, the intention is to create structured meetings between companies, investors, startups, technology providers and potential regional partners rather than relying exclusively on conventional conference networking.
The organisers are careful not to describe these as pre-agreed investments or contracts.
That distinction matters.
The value of a business summit is ultimately determined not by attendance figures but by whether introductions produce commercial relationships, financing, partnerships or market expansion.
The first edition established a network — the second will need measurable outcomes
The inaugural EBIS was held in Dakar on 27–28 June 2025.
Organisers report that it included more than 25 speakers, 12 panels and keynotes and more than 15 partners and sponsors, with companies and organisations including Jumia, Yango, YAS, AfriqMarket and ShopMeAway participating in the wider ecosystem.
However, EBIS does not claim that the first edition produced specific investment transactions or contracts that can be independently documented.
Its principal result was the establishment of relationships between e-commerce companies, institutions, startups and technology providers.
That makes the 2026 edition more interesting from a business perspective.
The introduction of structured B2B and investment meetings creates an opportunity to determine whether a conference network can translate into measurable economic activity.
Africa’s e-commerce opportunity depends on connecting the entire transaction
The long-term potential of African e-commerce is not difficult to see.
The harder question is how quickly the infrastructure catches up with demand.
A genuinely pan-African digital commerce market requires much more than marketplaces.
A merchant needs to be able to discover customers, receive payments, finance inventory, move products, clear borders, manage data and resolve disputes.
Each part of that chain has to work.
PAPSS is addressing one layer by improving regional payment connectivity. AfCFTA provides the broader framework for trade integration. Logistics companies, fintechs and digital platforms are building other parts of the system.
But the system is only as strong as its weakest connection.
For African e-commerce businesses, the next phase of growth may therefore be less about attracting another million users to a platform and more about something far less glamorous:
making money, goods, data and trust move across African borders as easily as a digital advertisement does.
Sources and Information
- UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) — E-commerce and Digital Economy
- Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS)
- E-Business International Summit (EBIS)
Information concerning EBIS 2026 participation, programme structure and first-edition figures was provided by the event organisers to AfricaBusiness.com and has been identified accordingly.
Featured image credit: AI-generated image by OpenAI for AfricaBusiness.com.