Jumia is undoubtedly the leading e-commerce platform in Kenya. Over the years, the company has grown to have hundreds, if not thousands, of sellers and millions of buyers.
Jumia Black Friday is meant to offer its customers deals on various products on its platform. The only issue is that most of these deals rarely exist, and Jumia tends to act as if they do. There have been complaints that the deals Jumia promotes are unavailable. I have had the same thought but just never had any evidence of the same until this past weekend. I was having a conversation with some people who wanted to take advantage of Jumia Black Friday to get new smartphones at discounted prices.
When we logged in to Jumia, we could not find any good deals specific to Black Friday. There were quite a number of smartphones listed, with Jumia claiming they are heavily discounted, but having seen them before, I knew the prices haven’t changed that much from when I saw them a few weeks back.
To make sure I wasn’t making any mistakes, I decided to use the Wayback Machine to go back a few weeks to see how much the currently discounted products were listed for then. I was interested in the Smartphones page (https://www.jumia.co.ke/smartphones/) as I could not find the individual phones on the Wayback machine. When you go to the smartphones section page on Jumia, you will see the discounted products labeled as such, meaning that you are saving money buying now compared to those who bought the same products a few weeks back and those who will buy the phones as from December when Jumia Black Friday month ends.
Are there any deals?
The interesting thing is that, using the Wayback machine (https://web.archive.org/web/20231030023829/https://www.jumia.co.ke/smartphones/), a number of products are retailing at the same price as they were on October 30th before Jumia Black Friday sale kicked off. Some are even more expensive now than they were before Jumia Black Friday.
One such product is the Nokia C32 (4GB RAM, 64 GB variant), which on October 30th was available for Ksh 14,949. As part of Jumia Black Friday deal, the phone is listed for Ksh 15,360, slightly higher than what it was available for before Black Friday. This is quite interesting as you would expect a lower price on Black Friday, but this is the opposite of that.
A quick glance at the other products shows that there are no major deals you are scoring as part of Jumia Black Friday. For a product like the Infinix Smart 7 HD (2/64 GB variant), the Black Friday deal lists it for Ksh 10,999 while it was just Ksh 11,999. A 1K saving is not bad, but the listing makes you think that the regular price for this phone is Ksh 14,999, hence you are saving over 4K, which is not the case.
Things are not that different with the Tecno Spark 10C. The Jumia Black Friday deal lists it for Ksh 16,320, while its regular price back in October was Ksh 16,799, meaning that you are saving Ksh 400. The listing will make you feel like you are saving more than that, as it hints that the regular price is Ksh 19,999.
These are just the few ‘deals’ I have managed to point out, but there are many more. This, to me, is just dishonest for Jumia to do given that they have been in this market for years and can offer real impactful discounts if they really want to. I just don’t get why they don’t.
How does Black Friday work?
Black Friday is essentially meant to provide deals to customers during a specific period. These deals can range from 10 to even 50% off regular prices. This is what Black Friday is meant to achieve but that’s not normally what you get.
How long do Black Friday deals last?
Jumia Black Friday lasts from November 1st to November 30th every single year.
Can you pay on delivery on Jumia Black Friday?
Yes, on some items, you can pay on delivery during Jumia black Friday. Before making any purchases, confirm this is possible before proceeding.
Does Kilimall have Black Friday?
Yes, both Jumia and kilimall have black Friday deals that last all through November. It suffers from the same concerns as Jumia as you do not really get any deals with either.
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