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Companies in Uganda have been challenged to tap in the global e-commerce opportunities to manage the changing landscape of trade, shifting to online market places.

Developing countries such as Uganda are increasingly seizing the opportunities of online marketplaces expanding the markets as well as opening new overseas markets to local enterprises in the East African Community (EAC) region.

According to Hassan Saleh, the Managing Director, Multi Choice in Uganda, e-commerce is seen to have massive potential to create major shifts in cross border trade or exports and imports.

“e-commerce if well integrated in our marketing strategies, will help us widen markets, and enhance competitiveness of businesses and efficiency in delivery of goods and services locally and internationally,” he said.

While addressing business corporates during a creative and marketing symposium at Serena Hotel in Kampala, Saley revealed that companies should use technological diverse capabilities at their disposal to drive sales and the image of the brand at their discretion.

“You need to adapt to the mobile-fast communication era which is driven by a mobile phone which was invented in 1973 with the first phone communication done by Motorola engineer, Martin Cooper,” he challenged.

Today’s businesses are done ably well through e-commerce by influencers, display advertising, geo-tapping and geolocation, mobile applications, gamification, promo codes and shareable content, he added.

“Global mobile e-commerce which is now standing at $2.2 trillion (60%) in 2023 is estimated to grow to more than $3.4 trillion at 62%,” he said.

e-commerce has the potential to cause emergence of new business models and removal of some traditional intermediaries while introducing other intermediaries that suit the online market place which Ugandans especially the youth need to tap in, added.

Irene K Kakonge, the manager Business Application Post Bank Uganda, disclosed that Banks are losing money while trying to fight electronic fraud due to advancements in technology. (Photo by Isaac Nuwagaba)

Irene Kakonge, the Manager Business Application at Post Bank Uganda said that tapping in the mobile-fast communication era is everyone’s capacity because a big number of Ugandans have access to a phone.

“We used to have Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs) cards but when all the banks harmonised with telecommunication companies, transacting on phone compelled us to improve our technology and efficiency even to areas where we did not have bank branches,” he said.

The security of the cards is hard to enforce because clients keep making mistakes, forgetting their pin numbers and sharing them with relatives which has since been reduced by using phones to do transactions on mobile money.

In Uganda, the price of 1GB reduced from sh45,000 in 2008 to sh5,000 in 2023 which shows that many people are increasingly using the internet than before.

“Total internet subscription increasing from sh58,648 in 2008 to sh26,922,506 in 2023 in 2023 as well as mobile money subscriptions increasing from sh552,047 in 2008 to now 38,064,410 in 2023,” he disclosed.

Without a phone which is accessed by majority Ugandans, e-commerce cannot easily take off because it is the easiest tool which all companies should utilize to maneuver in the market, he assured.