Bayseddo aims to revolutionize African retail for agricultural products. We simplify the supply chain between fresh food producers and retailers through a B2B E-commerce platform. This removes the need for many intermediaries which significantly lowers the cost of food for consumers and eases the pressures of such work for thousands of Senegalese women. By creating this closed ecosystem in a $700 billion market in Africa, we will aggregate and transform Senegalese retail demand for agricultural products. In addition, we plan to modernize the workspace for women retailers by making it easier for them to access modern kiosks. Furthermore, as part of our partner consortium, our employees can distribute financial products, and have access to grouped health insurance policies, digital awareness training and financial education.
The Problem
Thousands of Senegalese women work anti-social hours in order to stock up on wholesale markets to resell in the neighbourhoods. Their family life is negatively impacted in order to sell their produce locally as they often have to travel more than 10 km by underground taxi or Ndiaga Ndiaye car to get to the Castor or Thiaroye market in Dakar to fetch supplies. The work’s informality and insecurity and the heightened risk of circulating with cash create barriers to the professional development of their business.
In addition, most youths feel that their education has not equipped them adequately for the job market. Employers also report the requirement for additional training to address the lack of soft skills
The Solution
To meet this challenge, we have set up an adapted ordering application that consists of free delivery, health insurance, and quality products at a competitive price. Our education system with sales representatives will support our young employees to master our digital platform and hotline.
By creating this closed ecosystem, Bay Seddo will bring more products to market and improve the daily lives of women retailers. We aim to achieve this through the following activities:
- the implementation of digital platforms and applications,
- contracting with producers,
- the purchase of products at the producer level,
- storage of products in cold buffer rooms,
- the preparation and packaging of the products to be delivered from online orders,
- the delivery of products to women’s points of sale,
- recovery from women via electronic payment,
- the enrolment of women in health insurance,
- financial education to facilitate access to finance
Additionality
It is likely that with CFYE support, the project will be better designed, proceed more quickly, and reach more young people than it otherwise would have. In the absence of CFYE’s support, the objectives will be reduced in terms of the number of women to be recruited and the improvement of the working environment. In addition to this, CFYE’s contribution will facilitate the financing of certain activities crucial for the development of the business model such as financial education and the subscription to health insurance policies.