We know that DHL is a delivery company and the firm has been doing that for quite some time now. We have also found out that the company is looking to expand its business to most parts of the world and there is no problem with that. However, the pandemic has meant that the trends have changed drastically in the last two months and we are seeing almost every company pivot to e-commerce because it is believed that that will be the only viable option for the time being. For that reason, DHL is also looking to enter the e-commerce sector in some form or the other and its latest investment does suggest the same.
According to a new report, DHL has just acquired a minority stake in a platform called Link Commerce which is developed by the makers of MallForAfrica.com which is a digital-retail startup in Nigeria. This tells us that DHL is looking to enter Nigeria’s e-commerce market and this seems to be the best way to do it. As per the description from the Link Commerce website, it “offers a white-label solution for doing digital-sales in emerging markets”.
Talking about the investment from DHL without revealing the exact stake they have acquired or the money involved, LinkCommerce CEO says that “DHL is trying to get their hands more into global e-commerce…across the world and they figured our platform was a good way to do it,”
Link Commerce CEO adds that their startup was built in 2011 after studying and working in the US and he says that “That’s what our service does. It takes care of that whole ecosystem to enable global e-commerce to exist, no matter what country you’re in,”. Earlier, it was seen that Africans had a habit of giving lists of goods to family members abroad to buy and bring home because those products were not available in their country but that has changed now since the inception of MallForAfrica.