SavanaKenya.com is a new online shopping and delivery service aiming to disrupt Kenya’s online shopping for good by helping users buy drinks, food and groceries from the comfort of their home from whichever supermarket the shoppers want to shop.
Founded by Bradley Opere, Anthony Maina, Jason Oteng-Nyame, Gabriel Wamunyu,Tapiwa Sondayi and Dofan Kone, all graduates from the prestigious African Leadership Academy, Savana is your day to day grocery shop, only it delivers your shopping at your doorstep at just Ksh 300.
The team of six comprising of guys mostly in their early 20’s aim to empower shoppers in Kenya by having their essentials delivered to them at their doorstep and end the inconvenience of shopping in physical malls and then wasting time on a line to pay at the till or wasting more hours in traffic going shopping.
“We understand how valuable your time is to you and as such, we are here to ensure that you never have to deal with the unnecessary hustle of traffic and standing in line when all you want is a a packet of milk or a loaf of bread,” they say.
Now live in Nairobi, the startup aims to deliver groceries to both offices and individual homes by utilizing M-PESA payments to give customers a secure and fast way to do so.They also aim to customize shopping for SME’s and corporations and even individual consumers.
The entrepreneural youth also want to use the business to mentor youths and influencing positive change. They also aim to set up a fund for the youth dubbed the Savana Young Entrepreneurs Fund from their revenues to inject it to youths to build businesses.
Now in pilot phase, Savana Kenya aims to make money from advertising, delivery charges and mark-ups and the firm is working in various deals to see them deliver groceries to homes and offices in just 2 hours.
Though this is a brilliant move, Savana Kenya will face it rough with Nairobi’s poor addressing system and poor logistics services. The firm will also need its own warehousing services if they have to operate around the clock. Building their won delivery service is also another huge temptation to increase its revenues though working with a third party provider is more convenient.
Another major challenge Savana Kenya will have is competition from offline retailers/shops next to the offices or homes and supermarkets such as Nakumatt building their own logistics network and online ordering system. The safety of the riders and their goods will need to be insured, which will require huge sums that a startup of this scale would need to seek investors to inject cash in, but most investors would be skeptical to invest cash in a company still in a pilot phase.
