Discover Market Express: Ghana’s Online Grocery Supermarket

Ebenezer Lartey, CEO of Market Express, shares his motivations for starting Ghana‘s online grocery supermarket.

“I started Market Express because it was a project I loved and I wanted to see it come to life. At the time, ecommerce was only focused on electronics. We needed to do something that was more important and beneficial to the wider population. We know that most people spend their money mainly on food, survival and subsistence, rather than on electronics. I believed that this would work, even though people argued with me that they were not sure that people would buy food online in Africa because people wanted to touch and feel and see the things before they bought them. It took us about a year to prove that people would use this system. In our second year, we had other companies that joined us, but a lot of them died along the way. Our crowning moment was COVID-19. COVID made it even more apparent that it was important that companies like us focused on this sector of the market. During that period, other big companies in this sector started doing food for the first time, until you see that the biggest player in our market, which is Jumia, ended up joining. In the past, they were totally focused on electronics and hardware. For me, it is a dream come true that we can do something that is relevant to many more people than normal and it is going to revolutionize how we do things. One of my biggest dreams is to see that we have no messy markets in Africa. For example, if you go to a typical market, people are all stepping over each other. There is a better way. My goal with this project is to change how Africa does its commerce, and not to deprive people of an opportunity, but to actually make it possible for even the ordinary man to move online and reach more people”, says Ebenezer Lartey.

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