Creating Inclusion in Jamaica’s US$1.1 Billion E-Commerce Market

by Franz Weathers

The Jamaican e-commerce market is on track to exceed an annual revenue of US$1 billion by 2025 with 1.2 million Jamaicans engaging in online transactions. Jamaica’s population is almost 3 million people, with over 100% of the population owning a connected mobile device.

In the Caribbean, many of the largest or widely used e-commerce marketplaces aren’t mobile-friendly, meaning, they don’t have mobile apps or in many cases, their websites aren’t optimized for mobile devices. So, you may ask – “Why is this important?” – the Caribbean region has largely leapfrogged desktop computers and is coming online via mobile devices, for reasons like affordability and access. So, if a marketplace isn’t designed to support mobile devices, it is simply not designed to reach the largest market segment of e-commerce.

In Puerto Rico, for example, It was reported that an estimated 61% of residents use their smartphones for online purchases. So, imagine an eCommerce marketplace that does not support mobile devices.

In Puerto Rico an estimated 61% of residents use their smartphones for online purchases

E-commerce as an Instrument For Growth

E-commerce can flourish in developing countries and in rural areas and can be a powerful instrument to create employment for semi-skilled workers, women, and other groups, according to a new joint research released by the World Bank and Alibaba Group.

The report finds a positive association between e-commerce and household welfare improvement in rural China. Households that participate in e-commerce have incomes 80% higher than households that do not. E-commerce store workers have wage levels equal to or higher than workers in urban private industries. Women and younger, better-educated households are strong beneficiaries of e-commerce in China.

Households that participate in e-commerce have incomes 80% higher than households that do not.

The report also identifies the risks and challenges that need to be tackled in e-commerce development. These range from regulatory challenges, such as how to regulate platform providers to ensure a level playing field for comparable digital services, protect consumers, and ensure fairness between online and physical vendors to special online risks from cybersecurity, privacy, fraudulent or defective/counterfeit products, technical concerns regarding electronic payment, and risks stemming from imbalances in competition among platform providers.

I looked at several different models of e-commerce marketplaces in an effort to identify which model would have the largest uptake by Caribbean residents and also be the most useful, especially in rural areas where the trade of goods and services is still done largely in cash and at a community level. The goal is to give everyone with a mobile phone the power to sell, and I believe the best way to do so is through Social Commerce.

The goal is to give everyone with a smartphone the power to sell, and I believe the best way to do so is through Social Commerce.

Why Social Commerce?

Social Commerce is the ability to buy and sell products and services from others within a social media platform itself, usually a mobile app. With the global reach of social media, users are now seeking ways to monetize their networks and followers, this is giving rise to a new trend, identified as Social Commerce.

Evidence of this trend can be seen in services like TikTok, which is now further investing in social commerce with its new global partnership with Shopify. The deal aims to make it easier for Shopify’s over 1 million merchants to reach TikTok’s younger audience and drive sales.

For the Caribbean however, the specific model I think would work best would look a lot like Carousell, a Singapore based startup that is rapidly expanding across SE Asia:

Carousell’s goal is to give everyone with a mobile phone the ability to buy and sell to each other. Imagine being able to discover items in your community by simply turning on your GPS on your mobile phone, then chatting to the seller, and possibly meeting up to trade those goods.

Franz Weathers is Managing Director of Remote Rocket a software development and tech services company.