Last-Mile Distribution in Rural Ethiopia
MLC Voyager | Created by Kidame Mart
Kidame Mart is an Ethiopian social enterprise established in 2017 that distributes high impact, fast moving consumer goods to rural Ethiopia.
976,300 Lives Impacted
Since beginning operations in 2017, Kidame Mart has empowered 1,300 female micro-entrepreneurs as rural sales agents. Total agents sales are ETB 34,483,362 and total agent profits are ETB 5,172,504, assuming an average 15% margin. Kidame Mart found that on average women have experienced a 36% increase in income since becoming sales agents. As Kidame Mart scales, women will earn closer to $1.90 a day thus lifting themselves above the poverty line and increasing their income by roughly 225%. Kidame Mart is confident that sales agents has continued to grow in the past year and will be conducted a survey in the coming month to validate this assumption. In addition, each sales agent regularly visits approximately 150 households, each with 5 consumers. Thus, we are currently reaching 975,000 rural consumers allowing them access to high quality and impact goods that were previously unavailable to these rural communities.
By purchasing Kidame Mart goods like soaps, fortified nutrition products, and solar lamps, consumers are improving their standards of living. Kidame Mart’s aggressive expansion strategy includes scaling from 1,300 agents currently to 5,000 agents in 2022, as well as increasing per agent sales from $120/month to $250/month. By 2022, Kidame Mart will have created a sustainable business channel with 5,000 micro-entrepreneurs operating and serving both retail and household consumers in white space markets. Each micro-entrepreneur will visit approximately 150 last-mile households with 5 consumers each, therefore allowing Kidame Mart to reach 3.75 million rural consumers directly with reliable and consistent access to high-quality and high-impact products.
The Innovation
Kidame Mart was founded to meet the needs of rural consumers and is built on leveraging the power of human connections. They recruit female entrepreneurs to sell products door-to-door and in local open markets. The social impact is twofold as they work to create regular and affordable access to quality, high impact products for rural communities in Ethiopia (approximately 70 % of the population) and provide an income generating opportunity for rural women.
Kidame Mart's headquarters in Addis Ababa supports networks of female entrepreneurs via rural operations managers based in hub cities. Each hub city contains a warehouse for product distribution to rural sales promoters, RSPs, located in each village where female entrepreneurs reside. RSPs work in each village facilitating female entrepreneurs' growth as business women, including support, mentorship, and skills training. Kidame Mart partners with multinational and local manufacturers to distribute high quality and high impact consumer goods to rural areas, where sales agents sell door-to-door and in market centers.
Kidame Mart addresses three main issues in rural Ethiopia:
Lack of employment or economic empowerment opportunities for rural women
Lack of access to high quality consumer goods for rural communities
Lack of rural market access and distribution channels for consumer goods companies
1. Providing income opportunities for rural women: Our inclusive distribution business is designed to introduce a new source of income for rural women, who are more likely to invest their earnings in the needs of their families than men.
2. Serving life enhancing goods to underserved areas: Kidame Mart is committed to provide quality, affordable products to hard to reach rural communities with limited access to products that can improve their health, hygiene, and livelihoods.
3. Making business sense: The inclusive distribution business is designed to provide sufficient revenues and benefits for all stakeholders involved. Kidame Mart helps consumer goods manufacturers gain low-risk access to white space markets and leverage high-touch consumer sales channels.
About Kidame Mart
Kidame Mart is Ethiopia's largest last-mile distribution network, empowering 3,000 rural female micro-entrepreneurs to earn incomes by selling high impact goods door-to-door to over 1.5 million rural customers. Rural women are trained as Kidame Mart sales agents and operate as micro-entrepreneurs, providing access to a wide range of quality consumer goods to rural communities.
In addition, female entrepreneurs set up shops in market places to further distribute Kidame Mart goods. As a social enterprise, Kidame Mart is providing both social impact to female entrepreneurs and their communities as well as financial return to further scale up programming.
