Africa Internet Accelerator creates integrated platform for unified navigation

"We not only believe in the individuality of each store at AIA, but also want to give our customers the opportunity to shop in other stores located in the same 'street'. Should you visit Style36, it is easy to navigate to Style36 Beauty, 5rooms.com, kinderelo.co.za or Style36 Sport through the tabs featured on each of the pages. The user experience is fuss free, which is in line with our mission to provide safe shopping, quality products and fast delivery, with exceptional service all round," says Emilian Popa, CEO of AIA.

On-trend

The integrated online platform, with three verticals, provides well curated and on-trend products in an aspirational, engaging and community driven format. This common infrastructure allows for the cost effective launch of additional verticals further down the line. By using a unified navigation, cross promotion leveraging is possible between existing databases.

"Internationally, Quidsi.com has been launching a significant number of categories under a common header and this has been received well by its customers. Where some e-commerce businesses locally prefer to launch as one destination with multiple categories, AIA is opting to launch a multitude of individual stores/verticals under one header."

Growing big companies

Naspers/MIH Internet Africa has a majority investment in AIA. The team has been responsible for establishing or growing some of the world's most iconic internet companies, including Groupon SA, TheIconic.com.au (fashion: Australia), Kalahari.com (general merchandise: Africa), MyLuxBox (beauty subscription: Asia), 36boutiques.com - now style36.co.za (fashion: Africa) and 5rooms.com (furniture: Africa).