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JABU Logistics continues to make great waves in Southern Africa

Southern Africa's fastest-growing e-commerce logistics services company for small retailers is JABU Logistics. Its overall mission is to bridge the informal retail sector opportunity with FMCG brands through technology by powering the way in which shop owners order, source, and stock their products, and executing the last mile of distribution for fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) brands.

“We hired 40 people from the community and in about one or two weeks, we registered 1 000 shops that had been affected by this shutdown. We realised that there’s a huge opportunity here to not only help them reopen but understand something very key here that they have no supply chain and no way of sourcing their products at an affordable rate,” said Akinin.

They currently employ over 200 people in Namibia, with branches at Rundu, Ondangwa, Oshakati, Walvis Bay, Swakopmund and Windhoek, whereas over 50 people are in Lusaka, Zambia. JABU values transparency, respect, trust, and open communication.

They connect the continent’s leading brands with the largest network of shops in Southern Africa. Some of the brands JABU works with include Bakpro, SugarKing, AB InBev, Panado, Lucky Star, Bokomo, Mauripan, Huggies, Namib Mills, Elso, FNB, Koffiehuis, Coca-Cola, Multichoice and Namibia Breweries Limited.

They offer services ranging from tech-enabled last-mile distribution, tech-first, branded distribution campaigns, e-commerce solutions, data-driven, free same-day delivery of stock to respective brands’ doorsteps and stock sourcing through their JABU application. “Our overall vision or goal is to become the largest multi-sided marketplace empowering the informal retail sector in Sub-Saharan and Southern Africa,” said Niita Shikongo, their marketing manager.

In promotion of its mandate, JABU makes use of certain marketing channels; face-to-face marketing which includes activation and customer visits, broadcast media of radio and newspaper, as well as social media platforms. The JABU team consists of individuals of all ages and from all walks of life. From Namibia to Egypt, their team consists of over 200 young, energetic, and talented professionals from around the world working cohesively to change lives and ensure JABU reinvents the way retailers in the informal sector order, stock, and receive supplies for their shops in Southern Africa. Their customers include small retailers, bakeries, restaurants, bars, mini-markets, and street vendors.

JABU promotes the evolution of the old days when people used to close their shops to source products, pay transport to deliver their stock, where they were prone to run out of stock a lot, consequently making very little profit from their businesses each month. The evolution that JABU is presenting to the world is the ordering of products by shop owners from the comfort of their stores via their phones and get free and fast delivery to their doorsteps and thus, they will never go out of stock on any items consequently growing their businesses with higher profits.

JABU offers tech and data-driven solutions for brands to grow their market share, enabling them and manufacturers to reach every retailer. Through their app and logistics operations, they sell FMCG products and operate the last-mile distribution, whereas small retailers, bakeries, and bars order and source their stock through JABU’s app and e-commerce solutions, and here, business owners benefit from fast and free same-day deliveries.

What makes their organisation stand out from the rest is the fact that they value proposition. They believe in the investment of small retailers, something most businesses overlook. They are not only connecting small retailers to some of the world’s biggest brands, but they are also continuously looking for ways in which they can help optimize their processes. Some of the ways in which they execute this are by offering them free same-day delivery for their stock, as well as their JABU CashPlus which conveniently allows their customers to withdraw and deposit cash at designated CashPlus stores, among other services.

The name JABU is short for Jabulani, and it came from a brainstorming session that the founder, David Akinin had with a close friend Jerome Kisting. They sat down looking for names that encompassed bringing joy and happiness to people and found the name Jabulani which means “rejoice” or “be happy” in isiZulu, while in Sundanese, it means “to bring.”