Shopaza Launch Signals Payaza's Infrastructure-Led E-Commerce Strategy for Africa

Payaza Africa has officially launched Shopaza, a new cloud-based e-commerce platform designed to simplify how businesses build and scale digital commerce operations across the continent. The launch event in Lagos on June 18, 2026, brought together industry leaders who discussed the challenges and opportunities of digital commerce in African markets.

Shopaza offers merchants a comprehensive suite of tools including online storefront creation, payment processing, inventory management, and operational oversight—all from a single environment. Rather than competing as another marketplace, Payaza positions Shopaza as an operating layer to reduce complexity for businesses moving online.

The timing appears deliberate amid growing interest in Africa’s digital commerce sector with expanding internet access and mobile adoption. While demand continues to rise, many merchants still struggle to convert digital interest into sustainable businesses—a gap Payaza aims to fill.

According to Onyinyechi Aderibigbe, Head of Business at Payaza, the platform addresses a need for integrated solutions as many businesses currently manage sales, payments, customer engagement, and logistics across multiple disconnected platforms.

Payaza’s Head of Engineering, Kehinde Omotoso, emphasized that while online transactions have increased, operational efficiency hasn’t necessarily followed suit. He pointed to persistent bottlenecks in payments, logistics coordination, and platform fragmentation as barriers to sustainable scaling.

“With Shopaza, we are here to solve for our African market, starting with our African market, and then expanding globally,” said Omotoso. The platform integrates multi-currency payments, instant settlements across 23 global markets and 54 African nations, and features an AI-native architecture that automatically populates product data from a single image upload.

Throughout the launch discussions, trust emerged as a critical factor for e-commerce growth in Africa—potentially more important than pricing alone. Panelists noted that consumers often abandon carts due to concerns about platform legitimacy, delivery reliability, and post-purchase support rather than cost.