Daraz, Kaymu merge to ‘accelerate growth’

KARACHI: Daraz and Kaymu, Pakistan’s two leading e-commerce players, have agreed to join hands in order to “enhance the value proposition to customers and sellers and accelerate growth”.

According to a press release, both platforms will remain active with their current brand names, but the new entity, Daraz Group, will integrate the operations under one roof.

Daraz and Kaymu have built unique expertise in their respective business models, and the decision to operate the two entities together will give the group a 360 degree ownership of e-commerce market in Pakistan, it said.

Daraz will continue to operate as a B2C (Business-to-Consumer) marketplace for products, with premium fulfillment and value-added-services to help professional sellers scale their business. Daraz will continue to provide its customers with 7 day return policy for its wide range of products from local and international brands.

Kaymu will continue to operate as an open marketplace for smaller businesses and individuals to interact directly with customers through a community based trading platform.

Bjarke Mikkelsen, co-CEO Daraz Group, states: “Daraz and Kaymu have both built successful operations in their respective markets. The merger is now the next step to offer our sellers the best possible solutions to grow their online business, and to start capitalizing on the synergies between the platforms. In addition to the local benefits of a more integrated strategy, we are excited to build a best-in-class team in Karachi for our central functions like IT, marketing and Business Intelligence in order to unite the best practices from the B2C and the C2C world.”

Dr. Jonathan Doerr, co-CEO Daraz Group, adds: “We now need to closely analyze the local presence in each respective market and based on the operations and market structure, design the optimal individual strategies. Several cross-country task forces have already started their work to develop the most efficient plans for Daraz Group.”

Ali Zain Sheikh, Managing Director Kaymu Pakistan, said: “We are very excited to start building an integrated platform with our colleagues from Daraz. By uniting Kaymu’s expertise in C2C and Daraz’ best-in-class B2C operations we will be able to achieve more together than we could ever imagine individually.” –PR