Alibaba.com, a major B2B e-commerce platform headquartered in China, and Kwik, a leading digital platform for logistics services in Nigeria, have announced a partnership to support Nigerian exporters.
Alibaba.com serves millions of buyers and suppliers around the world, offering a wide array of products in over 40 distinct categories, ranging from consumer electronics and machinery to apparel.
Kwik is a leading digital platform for on-demand logistics services in Nigeria. It enables thousands of merchants, businesses and corporations to outsource their logistics operations such as warehousing, fulfilment and delivery in Nigeria and in the sub-Saharan Africa region.
Kwik is now an official Authorised Channel Partner of Alibaba.com in Nigeria. This is the first such partnership signed by the e-commerce giant in sub-Saharan Africa. Kwik will market the Alibaba.com platform to Nigerian manufacturers, producers and exporters.
In fact it has already begun doing so. On its site, Kwik is promoting the agreement with the announcement that companies should “join Alibaba.com’s B2B platform from Nigeria now and compete globally”, suggesting that doing so could give businesses access to 48 million B2B buyers and importers in China and worldwide.
Alibaba.com and Kwik have further underlined their their partnership by introducing a series of special rates for Nigerian manufacturers and exporters to acquire membership on the Alibaba.com platform as well as associated features and benefits.
Romain Poirot-Lellig, Founder & CEO of Kwik, says: “This partnership with Alibaba.com sends a very strong signal to Nigerian businesses: accessing the world’s markets is a few clicks away! Competing globally creates jobs and will play a key role in lifting up the Nigerian economy.” He adds: “There is a strong complementarity between our portfolio of customers and Alibaba.com’s platform.”