Localized operation on cloud, the sea going experience of kilimall, the largest e-commerce platform in East Africa

Reading guide ： Chinese e-commerce enterprises sell goods in Africa , Global cloud service providers are indispensable .

In recent years , Africa has become a major emerging market for Chinese enterprises .

Founded on 2014 Year of Kilimall, It is the first Chinese enterprise to enter the e-commerce industry in Africa , Leading the industry in East Africa . at present ,Kilimall The number of users has reached ten million , At the same time, it is the first company in the African continent to realize 100% Pay online , The first company launched the same day and the next day , as well as 7 E-commerce enterprises that have no reason to return or exchange goods .

We should do a good job in e-commerce business on the African continent thousands of miles away , Finding a global cloud service provider is essential . With the help of Amazon cloud technology ,Kilimall Achieve business growth 50% And cost savings 30%, Click through rate increases 15%.

In Africa, where the infrastructure is backward , What challenges and experiences can Chinese enterprises share when they go to the sea and go to the cloud ？ not long ago ,Kilimall founder 、CEO Yang Tao shared with the domestic media Kilimall The experience of going to sea and going to the clouds .

Kilimall founder 、CEO Yang Tao

Choosing a global cloud is a must

“ At present, Africa is only in the first tier cities , For example, the capital region of a country , There are several large Shopping Mall Can buy some things , But consumers have very little choice , The price is very high , The retail price in Africa is three times that of us , In many cases, the price will be more than ten times higher .”

Yang Tao said , When I went to Africa to do mobile payment business ten years ago , I strongly feel the inconvenience of local shopping , This gave rise to the idea of starting a business in Africa .“ Why do we enter the African market ？ There are many coincidental factors . I think only e-commerce can solve the current situation in Africa .”

As the infrastructure required by e-commerce exchanges is very backward , High transaction risk 、 Inefficient trading 、 High transaction cost 、 Poor trading experience , It is a true portrayal of Africa's e-commerce environment .

therefore , Enter the African market 8 Over the years ,Kilimall The platform and system are built step by step , Created an e-commerce support Suite （Kili E-business Enabling Suite）, Not only e-commerce transactions , It also includes performance 、 payment 、 After sales and big data , Provide African consumers and Chinese enterprises with a smoother use experience . Behind this , Without the support of global cloud service providers .

Kilimall It was built on Amazon cloud technology at the beginning of its establishment , Rely on the global infrastructure of Amazon cloud technology to quickly complete the business launch . these years , Machine learning and artificial intelligence of Amazon cloud technology 、 Data lake and data analysis 、 Containers 、 No server and security compliance services , Supported Kilimall The rapid development of business .

such as , Based on managed container services Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) Build an e-commerce platform , And carry out microservice transformation ,Kilimall Get efficient computing resource provisioning and automation Kubernetes Application expansion to reduce costs . At the same time, server free computing services are used Amazon Lambda and Amazon API Gateway Simplify the architecture ,Kilimall The capacity can be expanded or reduced according to the peak and trough of the business , Easy to handle the anniversary 、“ Black five ” And so on , Support business growth 50%, Optimize unit costs 30%.

Amazon best practices , Enable localization and fine operation

“ Think globally , Localization operation ” It is a compulsory course for all enterprises going to sea . According to the characteristics of local consumers in Africa , Fine localized operation is Kilimall The core challenge of . Outside the cloud service provider , As the world's largest e-commerce platform , Amazon has rich experience in e-commerce operation , Give Way Kilimall Can stand on the shoulders of giants , Compared with the .

“ For the African market , On the whole, it is more inclined to Europe and the United States , Therefore, in the selection of product functions 、 Position , Even some designs of the category 、 Terminology, etc , Amazon cloud technology provides a good reference and benchmark .”

A typical example is the personalized recommendation of thousands of people . Africa has little local production capacity ,90% Our goods need to be imported by trade , The retail commodities in Africa are mainly standard products 、 Popular and basic models . But no sales does not mean no demand , Long tail category 、 Long tail SKU Is the advantage and opportunity of Chinese e-commerce enterprises . at present Kilimall Of SKU Millions of people , How to accurately recommend has become a challenge .

With the help of Amazon cloud technology machine learning services such as Amazon Personalize Personalized recommendation service ,Kilimall Focus on consumer demand , Create shopping cart recommendation and other functions , Quickly improve the click through rate 15%.

Another example , The unit price of data traffic package in Africa is higher than that in China and Europe and the United States ,Kilimall By leveraging Amazon cloud technology Amazon Lambda Services are compressed , The picture 、 The amount of video data is reduced 40% above , It increases the usage time of users , Let users browse without pressure .

In response to the global supply chain challenges and rising international transportation costs caused by the epidemic ,Kilimall With the help of Amazon Forecast（ That is, time series prediction service based on machine learning ） Make warehouse replenishment plan , Realize accurate inventory forecast for daily business , Reduced operating costs . meanwhile , In the field of big data , It will also increase investment , Planned application Amazon EMR（ The big data platform in the cloud ） Deepen data analysis .

Wang Xiaoye, director of the technical expert team of the Greater China Product Department of Amazon cloud technology, said ：“ We hope to take advantage of the flexibility of Amazon cloud technology's intelligent Lake warehouse architecture , And the ability of intelligent depth of the intelligent Lake warehouse , Can help in the future Kilimall Provide such as customer user experience 、 More support for fine operation .”

“ I hope that in the next three to five years , We are on every street in Africa Kilimall The courier of . We plan to open next year Fulfilled by Kilimall service （ Overseas warehouse ）. This service is also a scarce service in Africa , We hope to stand on the shoulders of the giant of Amazon cloud technology and go further and further .” Yang Tao said .

The pictures in this article are from the photo network

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This paper is about 「 Intelligent evolution 」 Original works .