Of the more than 200,000 companies created and listed throughout Cameroon, more than 1,400 have settled in e-commerce.

Here is information that will certainly do good for economists and national and international opinion. Cameroon is now positioned as a reference country in terms of e-commerce, at least for the development and growth of SMEs. The latest report from the National Institute of Statistics reported the census of 209,486 companies on the national territory in 2016. A figure significantly up on the year 2009 when there were 93,969 structures. 79% represents very small businesses, 19% being SMEs and only 2% made up of large institutions.

In this very competitive economic environment, it is difficult for small businesses to hold their own because they have neither the means nor the technologies and even fewer resources to be able to develop. E-commerce therefore appears to be a godsend for them.

E-commerce, a holy grail for Cameroonian SMEs

"We know how difficult it is for an SME to develop in the different contexts that we all know. Firstly because they do not have the necessary budget and because they do not have the appropriate technology. The e-commerce is therefore positioned as the unique solution available to them. This type of commerce allows you to develop without any additional investment". This is the opinion given by an expert a few years ago, when Africa was just entering the era of technology and electronic commerce. A few years after this speech, the report is impressive, in particular in the country of the Indomitable Lions. More than 14,000 companies are now registered on e-commerce platforms, in particular that of Jumia.cm, the African leader in this sector.

Of this impressive number of companies registered on the benchmark e-commerce platform in Cameroon, more than 90% are very small companies with entrepreneurs who are often at the start of their projects. This is the case of Mr. Clotel Lago, a small trader who got to know Jumia a few years ago and since then his turnover has been growing.

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