E-commerce platform Kilimall has closed shop in Uganda, Daniel Nyunyuzi told Digest Africa. Nyunyuzi was partnering with Japanese businessman Jay Cho to revive the business in the country.
“Kilimall is not operating in Uganda locally [anymore],” he said adding that the two were in talks with the e-commerce platform to acquire a majority stake in the company’s Ugandan operations.
Nyunyuzi formerly worked as the category manager for Jumia Mall Uganda when it was known as Kaymu while Jay Cho’s firm Pink Tie was handling logistics including deliveries for Kilimall in Uganda.
Nyunyuzi and Cho started having conversations with the co-founders of Kilimall after the company started facing troubles in the Ugandan market where it let go a good number of its employees in 2017.
The two potential partners are experienced in the e-commerce business and were reportedly the right people to take up the company.
“Ideally, I would control the commodity side of the entity, and he (Jay) would control the logistics and operations side of the entity,” Nyunyuzi explained.
Possible Partnership Hits a Snag
However, the talks between Cho and Nyunuyuzi and the Kilimall co-founders stumbled upon a disagreement after the ended up having divergent business models, strategies, and priorities.
“We had a verbal agreement but as we continued to discuss and send an agreement to them, they turned it down. There’s a certain business model they wanted to focus on and we were not aligned. So we wanted to do the local business as well as the international business but as the days went down they started changing that they wanted to focus on international business,” Nyunyuzi said.
The lack of a convergence point, therefore, resulted in Pink Tie cutting off its ties with Kilimall as Jay Cho decided to let go the idea of a partnership.
The closure of Kilimall’s Ugandan operations leaves Jumia as that biggest player in the market.
