OmniRetail Empowering Women Retailers in Africa

In 2022, Joyce Moses, the owner of a modest corner shop, discovered a solution to the daily grind of managing inventory. Before then, sourcing everyday items like sachet beverages, grains, and toiletries required endless phone calls, trips to multiple suppliers, and the burden of unpredictable price hikes.

Her operations transformed when she started using OmniRetail, an e-commerce platform that empowers women retailers by enabling them to shop for inventory online. Through OmniRetail, she now bypasses middlemen, gains access to competitive prices, and tailors her purchases to suit her budget. What’s more, the platform delivers her goods to her doorstep the next day.

A standout feature of OmniRetail empowering women retailers is the Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) service. This allows traders to access inventory without upfront cash, bridging critical cash flow gaps. For women in Africa’s informal retail economy, where access to credit remains a daunting hurdle, such solutions are game-changing.

Women and the Credit Gap

Access to capital has long been a structural barrier for women in Africa’s retail sector. Traditional banks often overlook them due to limited credit histories and entrenched systemic biases. Many women are forced to rely on predatory moneylenders charging exorbitant interest rates or are outrightly excluded from formal credit systems.

A report by the African Development Bank Group notes that many women do not apply for loans simply because they believe they won’t qualify. This low self-assessment of creditworthiness is both a result and a cause of systemic financial exclusion.

Startups like OmniRetail are shifting this narrative. The platform’s BNPL model offers collateral-free credit based on users’ transaction history and order patterns. This data-driven credit scoring allows women to build financial trust and access working capital.

Currently, over 60% of OmniRetail’s BNPL users are women, and the company reports a non-performing loan rate of under 0.5%, an impressive figure that speaks to the repayment discipline of women micro-retailers.

Related: OmniRetail Raises $20,000

How OmniRetail Empowers Women Retailers

For OmniRetail, empowering women retailers goes beyond just credit access. The platform helps small-scale women entrepreneurs overcome operational challenges by:

• Offering a wide range of essential products directly from manufacturers
• Providing next-day delivery to save time and energy
• Enabling cost comparison for better financial planning
• Offering credit to support continuity in business

As a result, many women micro-retailers have scaled their businesses. Some have grown from operating single kiosks to managing multiple outlets or even becoming distributors. These stories reflect a wider trend of economic empowerment when women have the right tools and platforms.

Investment as a Catalyst for Women’s Empowerment

OmniRetail was recently named Africa’s fastest-growing company and secured a $20 million funding round. This capital injection will further advance the mission of OmniRetail, empowering women retailers.

According to the company, the funds will:

• Expand operations to more cities in Nigeria
• Establish new distribution hubs
• Broaden product assortments
• Strengthen credit and payment infrastructure
• Enhance data infrastructure and credit scoring models to responsibly underwrite more users

Importantly, this funding will also support targeted initiatives for women, such as:

• Tailored credit solutions
• Financial literacy training
• Community-building programs

OmniRetail also plans to scale its services across Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire in 2025, adapting its approach to reflect local market dynamics and retail behaviours.

The Bigger Picture: Tech-Enabled Inclusion

The impact of OmniRetail empowering women retailers is part of a broader movement where tech startups are blurring the lines between profit and social impact. Companies like TradeDepot have followed similar paths. In 2020, it raised $10 million and reported that 75% of its users were women. At the time, Hanh Nam Nguyen of the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative called it an opportunity to “catalyse more private capital for women.”

These ventures prove that inclusive design, especially in fintech and e-commerce, can deliver strong returns while addressing deep-rooted gender inequalities. For Africa, where women constitute a significant portion of the informal economy, solutions like OmniRetail can help bridge the gender wealth gap, enhance livelihoods, and foster community-level economic growth.

As funding, innovation, and data converge, startups like OmniRetail are creating a new future where female retailers are not just surviving but thriving. In this future, inclusive technology and smart credit models empower women to scale with confidence, dignity, and long-term resilience.