Social media is my bread and butter

As more youth use the Internet to make a living, EDWINNA JEPTANUI has created a niche for herself as an online agent and is smiling all the way to the bank

In the last decade, social media has revolutionised the way people interact, and for the youth in particular, you are either there or nowhere.

However, while it is all the rage, it is such a drug, whose addition cuts both ways, gainfully for some and not so much for others.

For Edwinna Jeptanui, social media turned out to be her bread and butter, having leveraged on the labyrinth that is online platfroms to get the financial freedom she had always dreamt of.

Growing up dreaming about how she would emancipate herself from poverty and free her mother from the hustle of paying school fees for her siblings, the fourth year student at Moi University chanced on a friend who was an agent for online retailer, Jumia.

Just a smartphone

Where her peers went to seek acceptance, she decided to make money instead as an agent for the online platform. Known as a JForce agent, she earns commissions by getting clients to buy goods on Jumia.

For Jeptanui, the beauty of the Internet is that it doesn’t discriminate and anyone can make money from it.  A recent study estimates that by 2025, online marketplaces alone could create three million new jobs.  

The study by Boston Consulting Group (BCG), dubbed How Online Marketplaces Can Power Employment in Africa, shows that online digital platforms are multiplying vendors’ income through increased demand for goods and services in locations currently beyond the reach of conventional retail networks. These platforms also bring more women and youth ­­— who in some countries have been excluded from the labour market — into the formal workforce.

She says this has been a great experience and has enabled her to be ‘the boss lady’. “I am able to pay my rent, help my mum with school fees, and travel since I’m a travel fanatic. A smart phone can work and pay you. It only depends on how you use it,” she says.

Jeptanui has worked with Jumia since 2017. “I make orders, book hotels and flights for people who cannot access the app online or are too busy. I also do it for friends and family members. From that, Jumia pays me commissions for every order I complete,” she adds.

Her business started in a simple way. “I began with zero investment; I only used my data bundles to access the Jumia app and surprisingly I was paid Sh10,000 the following month,” she says.

Simple task

Jeptanui connects with clients through WhatsApp groups to share daily deals to get requests for bookings. 

“The task is so simple, I share daily deals on the groups, get requests for bookings and boom! Commission flows in at the end of the month,” says the enthusiastic Jeptanui.

As a travel enthusiast, she interacts with people on Facebook pages focusing on travel  and events and shares her hustle. Through it, she has  accumulatd more than 1,000 contacts. She also  requests every new client to share the product links to their existing WhatsApp groups for expanded reach.

Usually, she also targets those who do not have smart-phones or those who do not know how to place orders online. When a customer makes an order through an agent, they are recorded under JForce account and this guarantees respective consultant commission from sales. Jumia or a JForce agent then delivers the item directly to the buyer.

The work does not require any capital as Jumia provides the merchandise and the agents become their own bosses. Out of this, Jeptaniu, who hails from Kapsoya, in Eldoret, Uasin Gishu county takes home up to Sh100,000 from which, she has been able to pay her school fees and support her mother.

Jeptanui is urging unemployed youth in Kenya to tap into the Internet before it is too late. And all you need is a smartphone.