Basket Ecommerce

Many informal retailers in South Africa wake up at 4:30am to head to
Cape Town Fresh Produce Markets, spends 20 minutes traveling to
Cape Town Fresh Produce Markets from their home, 120 minutes
shopping for different products at the market (the vast size of the
market and organization of warehouses by product means a lot of
travel within the market), and then a median of 25 minutes time
traveling back to their business. The consequence is a median
(mean) of more than 10 hours (more than 12 hours) per week spent
traveling to, in, and from the market. This is on top of long working
days, with the owners typically opening their stores at 7am and
keeping them open until 9pm (14 hours per day). Furthermore, these
centralized marketplace offer a huge disadvantage towards many
South African small-holder farmers who lack market accessibility,
infrastructure, logistics , distribution and technology to monitor and
grow their businesses to become sustainable businesses because
these centralized marketplaces are often oversupplied by
commercial farmers who create difficulties for smaller farmers to gain
market share to grow their businesses into sustainable farms and
businesses.

Basket Ecommerce is leveraging mobile phone technology to
aggregate demand for Fresh produce farmers from small vendors,
creating daily collective orders which can then be purchased in bulk
directly from farms (and, by taking advantage of economies of scale,
at a discount), and then be delivered to the business places of the
small retail shops. This effectively shortens and makes more efficient
the supply chain between farms and retailers. This allows Basket to
acquire a market share of about 50 000 informal retail shops to adopt
Basket's technology that allows informal retailers to leverage a smart
mobile technology to procure and transact payment through to
minimize and disrupt outdated and traditional unsafe stock-procuring
methods and cash transacting system which often presents
challenges for many informal retailers. By leveraging mobile phone
technology we are unlocking the potential of informal African retailers
through the introduction of digital-led and data-led technology.
Basket Ecommerce further empowers informal African retailers and
small-holder farmers by providing direct access to quality consumer
products & produce at affordable and competitive prices with a last mile distributions service within 24 hours

A B2B marketplace and last-mile distribution partner, offering tech-enabled, route-to-market development and merchandising for  FMCG suppliers and Small-Holder Farmers in undeveloped areas while helping unbanked
businesses grow through efficient delivery, an affordable product
basket, inventory management, and credit facilities.

Basket Ecommerce is leveraging mobile phone technology to
aggregate demand for Fast Moving Consumer Goods suppliers and
small-holder farmers from informal retailers by creating daily
collective orders which can then be purchased in bulk directly from
farms (and, by taking advantage of economies of scale, at a
discount), and then be delivered to the business places of the small
retail shops. This effectively shortens and makes more efficient the
supply chain between farms and retailers.
By leveraging mobile phone technology we are unlocking the
potential of informal African retailers through the introduction of
digital-led and data-led technology. Basket Ecommerce further
empowers informal African retailers by providing direct access to
quality consumer products & produce at affordable and competitive
prices with a distribution service within 24 hours 

The key users and customers for Basket Ecommerce are
predominately 500 000 informal retailers operating in underserved
communities and environments across different townships in South
Africa and 2 million small-holder farmers who are in desperate need
of a fast-procuring retail market. The Basket users utilizes the Basket
technology software because our startup is leveraging mobile phone
technology to aggregate demand for farmers from informal retailers ,
creating regular collective orders which can then be procured in bulk
from farmers (and, by taking advantage of economies of scale, at a
discount), and then be delivered to the business locations of the
informal retail shops. This effectively shortens and makes more
efficient the supply chain between farmer and retailer. 

Furthermore, the Africa continent is still 85% agricultural dominate with a informal retail market that is worth about $1.4 trillion and a small-holder farmer dominate agricultural market with a massive pool of 2 million smallholder farmers just in South Africa alone not including the rest of the continent. The agricultural and informal retail market in Africa is one of the largest market opportunities on the African continent a market that is very ubiquitous and a difficult market to crack. South Africa boasts as one of the fastest internet connection in the region and the highest mobile phone penetration, is transforming South Africa into a vibrant startup hub. South Africa boasts the fastest internet in Africa. With cities of Cape Town and Johannesburg with a population size of about 10,7 million together indicating a great market expansion that Basket Ecommerce could expand into especially because of the dramatically young growing South Africa informal economy that is becoming more tech savy.

Informal economy accounts for more than 70% of fresh foods and
Consumers products provided to consumers across the continent
with the assistance of smartphone penetration which has allowed
about 60% of underbanked businesses in South Africa to new
methods of ordering products via SMS and sales agents this allowed
Basket to deploy a mobile technology like the Chatbot leveraging
mobile phone technology to aggregate demand for Fresh produce
farmers, FMCG products from informal retailers, creating daily
collective orders which can then be purchased in bulk directly from
farms and suppliers

Basket Ecommerce is able to provide a internet
marketplace where informal traders can source goods directly, which
also keeps the prices of products competitive by removing the need
for agents, and ensures the next-day delivery of goods. It also uses
the traders’ transaction history to develop the credit profiles needed
to secure loans to expand and grow their businesses.

Basket Ecommerce comprise of young, smart, innovative and energetic and goal driven team of three co-founders and recent graduates from Stellenbosch University in South Africa who have a background in software engineering, electrical engineering and Transport Economics with a great passion for technological disruption coupled with innovation. The Basket Ecommerce team is highly passionate to see a 100% technological inclusive world that addresses challenges facing the most vulnerable and seek to be part of the difference makers. We have great technical understanding of Entrepreneurship and innovation. Our main goal is to be the best  we can be in any environment, we like challenges and always looking to improve and better our technology especially for those who need it the most. The team consist of a excellent leadership structure with a  professional and client satisfaction background. We have been a tech entrepreneurs for about 2 years since we initially started Basket Ecommerce during my undergraduate year. We are the best candidates to take our business to market because we  fundamentally understand the pressing and fundamental challenges that informal retailers face in the context of South Africa especially coming from  families where family members were predominately self-employed informal retailer operating in townships where many faced challenges such procure limitations, lack of working capital, logistics and mainly the hassle of carrying and operating on a heavily cash-based business.

Basket Ecommerce (Pty) Ltd has been able to onboard over 300+ informal
retail outlets in the township of Kayamandi, Stellenbosch (township in South Africa) with a 55 deliveries completed between supplier and the informal retail outlet located in Kayamandi. With an average of 50 minutes in delivery duration from supplier to shop making it the highest delivery time achieved by the Basket Ecommerce. With an 1000 transactions completed on the Basket Ecommerce ChatBot by local retailers procuring their stock

Gaining access to crucial mentorship, assistance, possible
collaboration and capacity building from the program will be crucially
essential to the further development of Basket Ecommerce and
potentially expand the company into strategic African countries and
areas with informal retailers that face identical challenges such as the
ones faced by many South African informal retailers. Furthermore,
the startup wants get a better understanding and key business
lessons that will be essentially important for Basket to achieve the
necessary goals, strategic expansion and milestones that the startup
wants to achieve more innovative B2B retail/ stock procurement
strategies that an create the needed socio-economic and economic
impact into areas and unbanked businesses across various African
countries through strategic collaborations and partnerships with
fellow entrepreneurs from the continent making impact where it
needs to happen

Basket Ecommerce is essential a innovative tech startup that is
highly operative on the African continent with a highly competitive
and untapped market within the agricultural and informal retail space,
in a market that is worth $1.4 trillion that present a number of
opportunities and expansion across the 54 African states. 

The go-to-market strategy for our company is, the introduction of the
whatsapp chatbot and strategically positioned distribution centres to
be more closer to informal retailers to cut and decrease logistics
costs. It is easier to persuade retailers to use digital channels to
manage inventory than to convince consumers to buy every other
achet of milk from a website and aggregating demand for food
product and produce from farmers and Fast Moving Consumer Good
suppliers for informal retailers. Both farmers and retailers are also
likely to be familiar with simple digital platforms like WhatsApp. As
they are already exposed to digitisation at the communication level,
ordering and receiving retail goods in bulk by tapping the eBasket
app on their mobile phone would be easy. It does not require learning
new skills.
Distribution or “route-to-market” solution Since this is both an
aggregation and a distribution service that stops just one level above
the direct consumer, it creates better delivery-value density (DVD)
and helps marketplaces, farmers and manufacturers gather
important data about informal retail flows

This allows our company to effectively close the biggest of headache and pain point within the African informal retail market, the challenge of access financial credit and working capital. Because Basket effectively has a key technological feature of  BNPL (Buy-now-Pay-later feature) to close the gap of informal SMMEs not being able to access working capital from financial institutions since majority of informal retailers within Africa are seen too risky for financial credit. 

Basket Ecommerce is a essential a innovative tech startup that is
highly operative on the African continent with a highly competitive
and untapped market within the agricultural and informal retail space,
in a market that is worth $1.4 trillion that present a number of
opportunities and expansion across the 54 African states. The long term vision for the Basket Ecommerce team is to further develop and
redefine our technology to introduce new key features onto our
software like BNPL (Buy-now-Pay-later feature) to close the gap of
informal SMMEs and small-holder farmers not being able to access
working capital from financial institutions. Furthermore, our company
is planning to intensively expand into Sub Saharan, West and East
Africa in highly populated and competitive countries like Kenya,
Tanzania, Nigeria, Uganda and Rwanda. While further introducing key
features like language and voice recognition features to assist
informal retailers and farmers to have efficient, effective and
innovative technological experience.

Merchants can restock their stores, while leaving the stress and pain
of minimum stock management, aggregation and disaggregation to
the Basket Ecommerce technology. As their business grows the
merchant's transaction history is used to build a validated profile,
unlocking access to even more services to support from our
ecosystem of partners. Basket Ecommerce is dedicated to
empowering small businesses and providing the resources and
support needed for underbanked businesses. About 550 000
informal retailers operating in informal and underdeveloped areas
known as townships within the context of South Africa face the
everyday challenges of having limited opportunities to more
formalized technological, socioeconomic opportunities which could
possibly impacted their businesses to become sustainable and
functional businesses that could provide them with decent Work and
Sustained, Inclusive, and Sustainable Economic Growth. Especially
since the informal retail economy and farming community is highly
dominated by women which allows Basket Ecommerce to have a
impact and influence in Gender Equality and Women Empowerment
by providing innovative technological solutions to those who need
them the most to strengthen key partnerships for the sustainable
development goals and economic inclusivity and opportunities.
By doing so Basket Ecommerce is able to provide a internet
marketplace where informal traders can source goods directly, which
also keeps the prices of products competitive by removing the need
for agents, and ensures the next-day delivery of goods. It also uses
the traders’ transaction history to develop the credit profiles needed
to secure loans to expand and grow their businesses. 

By leveraging mobile phone technology we are unlocking the potential of informal African retailers through the introduction of digital-led and data-led technology. Basket Ecommerce further empowers informal African retailers by providing direct access to quality consumer products & produce at affordable and competitive prices with a distribution service within 24 hours.

By being able to achieve technological impact and transformation where it necessary needs to happen. Allowing those who once never had the opportunities to access quality services to achieve desired socioeconomic impact.

Basket Ecommerce utilizes a technological strategy which utilizes a whatsapp chatbot and strategically positioned distribution centres to be more closer to informal retailers to cut and decrease logistics costs. It is easier to persuade retailers to use digital channels to manage inventory than to convince consumers to buy every other achet of milk from a website and aggregating demand for food product and produce from farmers and Fast Moving Consumer Good suppliers for informal retailers. Both farmers and retailers are also likely to be familiar with simple digital platforms like WhatsApp. As
they are already exposed to digitisation at the communication level,
ordering and receiving retail goods in bulk by tapping the eBasket
app on their mobile phone would be easy. It does not require learning
new skills.
Distribution or “route-to-market” solution Since this is both an
aggregation and a distribution service that stops just one level above
the direct consumer, it creates better delivery-value density (DVD)
and helps marketplaces, farmers and manufacturers gather
important data about informal retail flows.

Basket Ecommerce comprise of young, smart, innovative and energetic and goal driven team of three co-founders and recent graduates from Stellenbosch University in South Africa who have a background in software engineering, electrical engineering and Transport Economics with a great passion for technological disruption coupled with innovation. The Basket Ecommerce team is highly passionate to see a 100% technological inclusive world that addresses challenges facing the most vulnerable and seek to be part of the difference makers. We have great technical understanding of Entrepreneurship and innovation. Our main goal is to be the best  we can be in any environment, we like challenges and always looking to improve and better our technology especially for those who need it the most. The team consist of a excellent leadership structure with a  professional and client satisfaction background. Basket Ecommerce structured the company in manner that allows diversity, inclusivity and community within the team structure where all team members are highly valued because majority of the team members contribute positively towards achieving the necessary desired goals.

Basket Ecommerce generates revenue through a multiple and hybrid
revenue stream capacity where we generate revenue. Where we take
a 3.5% through every transaction that occur on the Basket
Ecommerce platform. Further we partner with leading Fast Moving
Consumer Good brands and supplier in which we provide data-driven
insights and analytics and also provide suppliers with real-time
market intelligence to help them seamlessly grow your market share
with detailed data and analytics on their product performance and
activities in emerging markets to develop very efficient marketing
operations.

The go-to-market strategy for our company is, the introduction of the
whatsapp chatbot and strategically positioned distribution centres to
be more closer to informal retailers to cut and decrease logistics
costs. It is easier to persuade retailers to use digital channels to
manage inventory than to convince consumers to buy every other
achet of milk from a website and aggregating demand for food
product and produce from farmers and Fast Moving Consumer Good
suppliers for informal retailers. Both farmers and retailers are also
likely to be familiar with simple digital platforms like WhatsApp. As
they are already exposed to digitisation at the communication level,
ordering and receiving retail goods in bulk by tapping the eBasket
app on their mobile phone would be easy

Which will fundamentally impact Basket Ecommerce income streams making our startup revenue-generating company that utilizes a various methodologies and systems to increase its revenue streams, through digital and seamless payments, digital and analytical driven data and distribution.

Basket Ecommerce has been fortunate enough to have received a various grant funding through strategic corporate-startup partnerships such as the Telkom Futuremaker and the student entrepreneurships hosted by the profound Launchlab Stellenbosch University Incubation and Acceleration program which works along student startups to validate the viability of student startups.