Africa's digital commerce landscapes are effectively catered to through Yoco's efficient payment systems, as suggested by the BackEnd report.
Yoco Expands E-commerce Presence in Africa, Offering More Than Just Card Payments
In the rapidly evolving world of e-commerce in Africa, South African startup Yoco is making a name for itself by catering to both the active offline and online demand sides of the market. This sets it apart from online payments and e-commerce offerings provided by competitors like Flutterwave and Paystack.
Last October, a shoemaker in South Africa joined Yoco's growing user base by purchasing an AI-operated card machine from the six-year-old startup, based in Cape Town. The card machine, which can be operated with the ease of a smartphone, not only facilitates card payments but also manages inventory and accounting for cash transactions.
Yoco's card machine offers a simple fee structure. There are no monthly fees, but a fee of 2.95% (excluding VAT) is charged on each sale made. This shoemaker's business, like many others, faced a major inconvenience due to the pandemic, causing sales volumes to dip. However, the AI-powered card machine has proven to be a valuable tool, offering flexibility as the transaction rate reduces as the shoemaker's transaction volume increases.
Customers can swipe, tap, or chip their cards to pay, making the process seamless and efficient. As the shoemaker's business adapts to the new normal, the AI-operated card machine's convenience is becoming increasingly important.
Yoco has been working on creating online payment channels even before the pandemic, but it tends to adopt a slow strategy when going to market. On April 17, 2020, it unveiled four web-only payment features. The payment page feature is equivalent to a static online store, where merchants create a page and share the link with prospective customers. The payment request feature allows merchants to create a sale on their app, generate a link, and share it for card payment.
Yoco aims to make its online solution flexible enough for merchants to customize it to their brands without sacrificing trust and performance reliability. This focus on customization is a key differentiator, as many merchants are welcoming the opportunity to access new customers through online channels, as they are already familiar with Yoco's AI-operated card machines.
While competitors like Flutterwave and Paystack gained traction as primarily gateway companies before entering the storefront space during the pandemic, Yoco strengthened its hand online in an area where it was already active offline. However, Yoco's focus is currently on covering more ground in South Africa before taking serious steps towards expansion.
As of now, Yoco boasts 95,000 users of its payments features in South Africa, but there is great potential for them to win over traders in other countries. With its user-friendly AI-operated card machines, innovative online payment features, and commitment to customization, Yoco is poised to make a significant impact in the e-commerce landscape of Africa.
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