African e-retailer wins Wall Street's attention

• Details: "Jumia has expanded from four to 14 countries. Gross sales last year reached $597 million, up 42% from the year before. Its vendor network, from Cape Town, South Africa, to Casablanca, Morocco, includes up to 70,000 businesses offering their goods and services online."
• How they're doing it: "Jumia executives have set up credit lines, offering loans to vetted vendors from the company’s balance sheet. They also hold training workshops on basic accounting and stock-keeping. To draw in shoppers uneasy about placing orders online, Jumia launched multinational marketing campaigns featuring some of the continent’s top pop stars and Black Friday events where buyers could win a live goat. Jumia also accepts cash on delivery, unlike most Western online retailers but similar to India’s Flipkart Group."

What to watch: "The advantage is that there’s no real retail industry to disrupt, no brick-and-mortar infrastructure to displace. It’s one of the leapfrog opportunities,' said Robin Miller, a partner at Dalberg, an emerging-markets advisory firm."