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Clarity Ventures Helps Create goAfrica to Increase eCommerce on the Continent

Opening African eCommerce to the World

Austin, TX — January 29, 2019 — Clarity Ventures announced today that it has completed the launch of goAfrica, an eCommerce platform designed to facilitate the buying and selling of goods within the continent and across the world. 

Clarity worked closely with an entrepreneurial group to find untapped business areas in Africa. The group wanted to create an eCommerce platform that would work specifically for as many countries and languages as possible. 

“No eCommerce offerings had ever been done on this scale before in Africa,” said Chris Reddick, President and CEO of Clarity. “With the continent’s incredible cultural, language, and monetary diversity, there were continued challenges throughout the project that required a flexible team to make everything happen.” 

Ron Halversen, Clarity’s Vice-President of Sales and Marketing, agrees. “Many internet users in Africa skipped the personal computer phase of getting online, with cell phones being their first means of personal web access. But while cell phone usage is high, smartphone usage isn’t. GoAfrica had to be designed with simpler ‘feature phones’ in mind so that as many people could take advantage of it as possible. The entire project had a mobile-first mentality.” 

These feature phones—cell phones that have physical keys and don’t have touchscreens—are internet-capable but don't have the processing power associated with a typical smartphone. This limitation meant that goAfrica had to offer a lightweight mobile data footprint so that it would be usable by anyone with slow or limited cellular data access. 

With so much B2B business taking place on non-mobile devices, the desktop/laptop side of the project also had to be robust. This part of goAfrica incorporated extensive features to facilitate large-scale purchases. Clarity and goAfrica partnered with several vendors to provide reliable shipping and tracking options, created a native chat function in the platform to provide real-time communications for quotes and correspondence, and incorporated APIs to cover multilingual and multicurrency options. It also includes a powerful escrow option that provides a level of trust for businesses that are unfamiliar with each other. 

Clarity continues to support goAfrica as it grows and faces challenges that couldn’t have been predicted at launch. Find out more about Clarity’s custom eCommerce platform and what it can do. 

About Clarity  

Clarity Ventures has been serving clients ranging from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies for more than 15 years. Services include integration, eCommerce, web portals, web design and development, and more. Clarity continues to see impressive growth year after year and is on track to become the next "Who's Who" in eCommerce software integration. While remaining lean and mean, Clarity is about to experience another round of growth that will bring on board some of the brightest minds available in the marketplace. 

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