The New Jumia One App is a Clever PR Move, But the App Sucks

Recently, Jumia launched a new app: Jumia One. Jumia One is dubbed an all-in-one Android lifestyle app. It is expected to allow users make seamless financial transactions and gain access to loads of information.

“The new app is useful to both customers and entrepreneurs looking to sell everyday goods and services. You can sell or buy airtime, make payments across different banks, pay your church offerings, book an Uber and most importantly, access all Jumia services”, said Kushal Dutta, Managing Director of Jumia One.

This description is a bit lofty. But to be sure the app is all that Jumia claims it is, I decided to give it a try. Here are my thoughts.

Be Smart!
Did you know you save ₦100 when you pay your Swift Internet bills with the Jumia One app?
Jumia One App – Bringing every online service in one place!
Download here >>https://t.co/OBZo0VoF4Y pic.twitter.com/PLTD8BuoKm

— Jumia Nigeria (@JumiaNigeria) March 25, 2018

My Thoughts Regarding the Jumia One App

One thing I liked about the app was the file size. At 5MB, Jumia One is a light alternative to similar apps like QuickTeller, ALAT and Octopus. This is good, since no one likes to have a large-sized app unless they need to.

One other thing that got my attention was that the app didn’t have an onboarding screen. An onboarding screen is that feature that displays the first time you use an app. It tells you in brief, what the app is about, using text and images. It’s not always needed, but in this case, it was.

Opening the Jumia One app the first time, I totally forgot what the app was all about. There were icons with labels, but I still felt lost. I was left to, on my own, figure out what the app was meant to do.

Scrolling down the screen, you’d see a bunch of things that you can use the app for organised into categories. I tried the first set of options, “Recharge and pay” and it worked fairly well. It was not as seamless as QuickTeller or my banking app, but it did OK.

So I progressed to other categories, and I was shocked. Beyond the “Recharge and Pay” options, every other feature in the app just redirected to a website. So when I tried to pay for an Uber, the app simply loaded Uber’s website!

Why should I be redirected to Uber’s website when I already have the Uber app? It didn’t make any sense. I got the same results when I clicked on other options.

So from my point of view, the Jumia One app is a good PR campaign attempt. It gives Jumia free publicity for a while, especially with its claims of being a unique app. But truthfully, the app is nothing more than a web browser that has been pre-loaded with bookmarks. This explains why the app is so light; it has no unique feature within it.

In summary, beyond offering utility payment services, this app is really not worth the hype.