The African eCommerce market is often described as fast-growing. In 2020, it generated $27.97 billion in revenue, in 2024, it reportedly grew to $55 billion, and is now projected to reach $112.73 billion by 2029.
However, a majority of eCommerce operators on the continent primarily use social media platforms to sell goods and manage their business, resulting in a variety of barriers to business growth. From a lack of accurate data and insight into business operations, such as who bought what, which goods sell the most, and when their customers are most active, to inventory mismanagement due to the fragmented purchase cycle across multiple platforms.
This was the core thesis at the launch of Shopaza in Lagos on June 18, 2026. To address the challenge that merchants in Africa and the diaspora face in scaling their business beyond a few social media interactions, Payaza, a Pan-African fintech company, launched Shopaza, an eCommerce platform for small businesses to create digital storefronts and streamline operations.
Shopaza, which is officially live across 23 countries in Africa, North America, and Europe, will run on Payaza’s payment infrastructure, one of its biggest advantages over dedicated eCommerce platforms that depend on third parties. Due to this integration with Payaza, merchants can enjoy instant settlement.
Kehinde Omotosho, Head of Engineering at Payaza Africa, in his keynote address, noted the timeliness of the product and highlighted the importance of its integration with an in-house payment infrastructure.
“We have our integrated payment infrastructure, which handles multicurrencies; we have instant settlement, which ensures that as you stock up your store, you can sell those goods, recoup your funds and immediately fund your store,” he said.
However, the most exciting part of the product launch for merchants and other attendees at the event was the reveal of the AI store builder, which helps merchants easily set up their stores and gain market competitiveness.
Omotosho described the product as AI-native, emphasising that with other digital storefronts, setting up the store inventory could only be done manually and would often require a huge time commitment. However, with Shopaza, the AI does the heavy lifting.
“All you have to do is drop an image of your product and let the AI do the rest for you. The AI will ensure that it sets the most competitive price, populates all the necessary information, including size, colour variations and all other properties,” he explained.
In addition to the AI integration, Esther Affia, Product Manager at Payaza, noted Shopaza offer merchants the flexibility to autonomously customise their storefronts. Many digital storefronts have simple templates that are not customisable, giving every store the same look and feel. However, with Shopaza, stores can take on identities of their own across the sales cycle.
“A couple of other eCommerce platforms have that [customisation], but we took it a step higher where we have multiple templates for booking, digital products, and physical products,” she said.
As Shopaza joins other fintechs digging into Africa’s growing eCommerce market, the differentiating factor remains in the ease of doing business, primarily how well merchants can set up their stores and make sales. Despite the barriers to growth associated with selling on social media platforms, merchants often stick with them because selling to customers is as easy as receiving a message, accepting, and shipping the goods.
Hence, eCommerce platforms like Shopaza must replicate this ease by ensuring the platform is not only simple for merchants but also for their customers, who may be put off by the slightest hiccup.
Shopaza’s AI integration and customisation are two tools that will ensure this ease as the company continues to scale the product
