Income generating opportunities for micro-retailers

Flexible credit services for micro-retailers

Micro-retailers play an important role across Sub-Saharan Africa, distributing goods ranging from agricultural inputs, hardware and medicines to fast-moving consumer goods. Often they provide the main form of distribution to low-income communities — as of 2019, this channel represented up to 70% of all retail transactions in Kenya, and up to 90% in Nigeria and Uganda. Micro-retailers also provide a key financial service, supplying many customers with their most important and accessible form of credit — often referred to as "shop credit." To provide this, retailers must manage the cash-squeeze of paying wholesalers for stock while extending and managing loan repayments from customers.

Micro-retailers often keep limited records of their business transactions and lack access to formal financial services, particularly to finance and grow their businesses — a challenge intensified by the disruption to face-to-face trade during the Covid-19 pandemic.

4R Digital is working with its partners to respond to these key challenges, leveraging available digital technologies and financial services to provide accessible and affordable solutions. Digital solutions can complement the traditional ways of working that micro-retailers are familiar and comfortable with, while enabling them to increase the range of products sold and the level of turnover achieved.