Selection Senegal
Niokobok
Reselling is widespread in Senegal, following a strong trend in emerging economies. There is an opportunity to generate thousands of jobs. SuperLinguere operates like a franchise (selecting members, controlling network growth to avoid cannibalisation and providing support and social benefits) to provide decent job opportunities. Within three years we will enable 1,500 young women to run a digital business generating an average monthly revenue of 150,000 CFA by selling a broad range of products (starting with fashion and cosmetics) within their community. We recruit young women with sufficient literacy, strong drive and appetite for social media through digital campaigns, offline campaigns and referrals.
The Problem
The pandemic created a huge strain on the Senegalese economy. While COVID-19 boosted the reliance on e-commerce, it brought with it many operational issues such as:
- demand fluctuation
- staffing issues
- product shortages
- price surges
Furthermore, the digital sphere of resale has a seasonal aspect, with peaks during religious events and troughs in low seasons. For many young women, flexibility in working hours and location is a keen desire, given domestic workload and familial reluctance to see them working.
The Solution
We believe that the SuperLinguere program is a great opportunity to establish a market leader shaping a whole industry in the subregion and allowing thousands of young women to start a small business adapted to their cultural context, with all the required business support including providing missing skills.
We will allow 1,000 women to start a digital social selling business generating a net income of 150,000CFA / month by selling groceries, fashion, and local cosmetic products within their community. We expect an additional 500+ women already in retail to join the program to grow their business.
Our model will:
- improve the lives of direct beneficiaries by helping them to generate income
- help other women to play a more active role in the professional life/life of the city by building role models
- own a tool for social change by creating the possibility to promote life-changing products by building a distribution channel
- provide continuous training on selling and customer care
- add financial education and life skills training to our core program
Our project will empower young women with sufficient literacy, entrepreneurial drive and appetite for social media but whose ambitions have been hindered by social norms and lack of business support. Although the main quantitative impact on job creation is the 1,500 first SuperLinguere, there is the opportunity to boost an impact-driven local champion in a labour-intensive industry.
Additionality
CYFE support is instrumental in starting the project. On top of making it happen, CYFE support would also dramatically influence the philosophy of the digital reselling platform. It is likely that social selling will keep growing in Senegal anyway. But there are different ways to operate reselling platforms, from the completely tech open source one to a more human-centered one, betting on a community and considering social sellers as partners and investing in them. We firmly believe that the human-centred one is creating more value, including economic value, but this requires patience and like-minded partners.
