Nigerian e-commerce startup Gloo.ng has completed a pivot into the e-procurement space after tiring of the difficulties associated with building a consumer-focused business in Africa.
Founded in 2012 as BuyCommonThings.com but rebranded to Gloo.ng in 2013, the company specialised in delivering affordable supermarket goods to the doorsteps of clients on a same-day basis.
Founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Olumide Olusanya had taken to Twitter back in January to announced that Gloo.ng was closing its e-commerce operations and selling its inventory, citing the long runway needed to make a success of an e-commerce business on the continent.
At that time Olusanya declined to announce what the next step was, but Gloo.ng has now formally rebranded as Gloopro, an e-procurement platform. According to its website, Gloopro is on a mission to build Africa’s largest, indigenous multi-enterprise procurement network and supply-chain trading platform.
“Gloopro simplifies purchasing for large enterprises with eProcurement and commerce solutions,” the site reads, describing the new startup as a “one-stop platform for large enterprises to optimise purchasing of material and service inputs not included in their core products or service”.
The Gloopro platform will also allow customers to gain critical insight into spending, drive costs down, increase visibility, deter fraud, boost efficiency and profitability, streamline process, reduce manual inputs, and remove delays and free up resources.
