Upgrade to Pro — share decks privately, control downloads, hide ads and more …

WordCamp Chicago. WordPress in Africa: Empowering Growth

WordCamp Chicago. WordPress in Africa: Empowering Growth

A 10-15 minute overview of the potential for market growth in Africa, driven by internet infrastructure, eCommerce and WordPress. Also covers the usage of WooCommerce in Africa and some ideas for expanding the WooCommerce market in Africa.

Joel Bronkowski

June 14, 2014
Tweet

More Decks by Joel Bronkowski

Other Decks in Business

Transcript

  1. Lessons learned in growing a WordPress business: A world of

    opportunity and challenges Lessons learned in growing a WordPress business: A world of opportunity and challenges Lessons learned in growing a WordPress business: A world of opportunity and challenges WordPress in Empowering Growth By @joelbronkowski
  2. My Background -From the suburbs of Los Angeles, in a

    town called Moorpark -Entrepreneur &Passionate about social justice and helping others -Gadget geek and former website hack -Worked in sales and in the oil industry while studying in the US before heading off to South Africa at age 23 (7 years ago)
  3. A snap shot of the internet and eCommerce Space in

    Africa The potential for WordPress and eCommerce in Africa How WordPress and WooCommerce is playing a part in the eCommerce space in Africa
  4. Internet in Africa 16% or 167 million internet users 67

    Million Smartphones 51.6 Million Facebook users More than 50% of urban population is online Growth is just beginning 3G Networks
  5. Accessibility Internet Access = Market Growth and Opportunity Access to

    the internet also provides tremendous value for consumers, online prices are lower. Access to goods
  6. Urbanization 1975 - 108 Million in Cities 2010 - 399

    Million in Cities 2020 - 661 Million in Cities 2050 - 1231 Million in Cities
  7. Youth 65% of the population of Africa is below 35

    years old making Africa in the most youthful continent By 2020 it is projected that out of 4 people, 3 will be on average 20 years old
  8. Mobile Phones But expected to grow to as high as

    50% in the next 10 years Africa’s smart phone penetration is just 2-5 percent. This translates into 300 million new smartphones being sold in Africa in the decade ahead. Mobile Phones
  9. Potential Opportunity to revamp delivery of education, health, and public

    service Imagine a typical university student in 2025. Mobile banking, access course content, buying product online and connected to the world
  10. a Free WordPress shopping cart + open-source - free to

    do anything with it + community developed 200+ contributors ______________________ = DREAM COME TRUE for Many People
  11. WooCommerce 1.0 0 downloads 1 x free theme 6 x

    official themes 9 x official extensions Sept 2011 Oct 2011 14,000 downloads 10 x official themes 20 x official extensions WooCommerce 1.4 45,000 downloads 16 x official themes 52 x official extensions Jan 2012 310,000 downloads 24 x official themes 145 x official extensions 30+ 3rd party themes 30+ 3rd party extensions Major Revenue Increases Sept 2012 June 2013 WooCommerce 2.0 1,000,000 downloads Dec 2013 WooCommerce 2.0 2,000,000 downloads Today WooCommerce 2.1 3,300,000+ downloads
  12. 1895 sites in South Africa 110 sites in Kenya 70

    sites in Nigeria 100 sites in the Rest of Africa
  13. Lowering the Barriers to Entry While Remaining Viable Creating Integrations

    That Open Doors Building Community around our Products Change the eCommerce Landscape
  14. “Ease of use, support community, customizability and well-designed themes. Wordpress

    has enabled us to scale at a pace that's comfortable for us. It allows us to develop custom plugin to suit our specific needs, and it does not constrain us when it comes to design and access to theme files. A lot of new companies are beginning to realize the simplicity of the platform, and its gaining a lot of traction with word of mouth. Wordpress developers are also now in high-demand.” “We need more localized payment gateways and better checkout customization” “eCommerce is the next big thing in Nigeria and we are now playing our part in that space” -Olaoluwa Samuel-Biyi
  15. “I choose Wordpress because of it,s simplicity and security stability

    and most especially the easy to use plug-ins for task modifications "It have helped me alot in term of bringing my business ideas live on web” “if you need to build a stable online market using WordPress, WooCommerce is the answer." "About 90% of Website in Nigeria are built using WordPress even some of our Government official websites are built using WordPress” "i personally developed my website because i am a young software engineer . i am currently studying software Engineering in school . The major Challenge is Payment processing. Currently now, the only shipping courier is DHL. And they charge a lots of cash for shipping which limit the use of commerce. I really wanna thank WooCommerce team.”
  16. “We chose woocommerce because of the large community of support

    woocommerce developers and team across the world. We get prompt answers to chanllenges and a variety of free extensions to choose from.” ! Of course there is a big opportunity for eCommerce in Nigeria. The country with a growing population of over 150 million has experienced over 80% raise in internet use in the past 5 years. People are becoming more mobile and internet savvy and this increases the growth of eCommerce. Oveem.com.ng was developed in house by the business founder and a friend. We designed a child theme of one of the free woo themes we purchased from the woo theme site.Online payment is the major challenge with eCommerce in my country. Most people are skeptical to pay online due to internet scams, but customers are slowly adopting the online payment culture.” -Josiah Uma Nigeria
  17. T H E R E I S H U G

    E P O T E N T I A L T O T R A N S F O R M T H E E C O M M E R C E L A N D S C A P E I N A F R I C A . H E L P P E O P L E , H E L P B U S I N E S S E S A N D C R E AT E O P P O R T U N I T Y