SME.NG introduces Ebi Marketplace to empower Nigerian female entrepreneurs

By Onome Amuge

SME.NG, an impact investment organisation, has unveiled a new e-marketplace app aimed at providing access to finance wider market access, technical and business support to local female entrepreneurs.

Branded ‘Ebi Marketplace’,the platform was established as a solution to the impact of Covid-19 on Nigerian female-owned businesses. It also serves as Nigeria’s first all-women e-market platform which is safe and user-friendly and will also feature a Nigerian women’s SME directory with sector and location tags to expand the reach of products and services across Nigeria and beyond, SME.NG stated.
In furtherance, it is set to be a one-stop shop information portal of opportunities for female entrepreneurs,providing a unique and seamless online trading and shopping experience to democratize access to finance and e-commerce for women entrepreneurs. Additionally, it includes features that will help drive sales and boost revenues for women-owned businesses, as well as provide other resources that will enable female-owned businesses to thrive.
Ebi Marketplace, according to SME.NG, will improve access to finance, access to wider markets, access to technical and business support, access to a job portal connecting female entrepreneurs to suitable staff. The platform will further allow entrepreneurs to connect and partner with other female entrepreneurs across the country, thus helping them transform their economies to become more independent, equitable, and sustainable.
Speaking on the purpose of the Ebi market platform,Thelma Ekiyor, managing director, SME.NG, stressed that Nigeria’s rising population coupled with the global pandemic has made economic opportunities limited and overstretched especially for the female entrepreneurs.
She added that the need to encourage, give access to finance and support these female entrepreneurs, cannot be overemphasized and SME.NG, through the innovative platform, aims to provide Nigerian Female Entrepreneurs the opportunity to grow their businesses through financial services, trading opportunities, advisory services, mentorship and networking and so much more.
“By providing female entrepreneurs with entrepreneurial opportunities to create wealth and support their livelihood, the Ebi Marketplace platform will help keep people in business, generate jobs and income,” She divulged.
To join the Ebi Marketplace Platform, interested female entrepreneurs are to register as vendors on www.ebimarketplace.com. Thereon, successful sign-ups would officially become vendors on the platform and can access all the benefits on the Ebi Marketplace Platform.
Ebi marketplace will officially go live on the 1st of August and the App will be available for download on Play Store and Apple Store.