More Africans will be warming to the web in the coming years. The number of online buyers in in the Middle East and Africa will grow 82% to 170.6 million in 2018 from 93.6 million in 2013, according to a recent report from United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

And when those new African citizens of the web are ready to shop, Jumia will be there. It’s been greeting early web shoppers in Africa for a few years now.

The online retailer, which sells a range of item from electronics to apparel in several African countries, has been expanding throughout Africa since its launch in 2012 and today announced Francis Dufay will head its operations in the Ivory Coast in West Africa.

Dufay moves to the role of managing director from his previous title of co-managing director after his colleague, Fatoumata BA, with whom he shared leadership for Jumia Ivory Coast, took on the role of managing director at Jumia Nigeria.

Dufay joined Jumia in 2014 from consulting firm McKinsey & Co. Dufay, who is French, holds a master’s degree in science from HEC Paris management school, a master’s in management from Cologne University and an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management in the United States.

Dufay will be responsible for growing Jumia’s business in the Ivory Coast. The retailer plans to add more branches where shoppers can pick up online orders throughout the country and to offer more products, particularly more appliances, and furniture and mobile phone brands. He also will work to strengthen Jumia’s relationships with local distributors, a Jumia spokesman says.

Jumia, which launched in 2012 in Nigeria, is part of African Internet Group, an incubator for online companies in Africa backed by Germany’s Rocket Internet GmbH, an investment firm that specializes in e-commerce in emerging markets. African Internet Group has helped launch 71 online businesses encompassing online retailers, online marketplaces, and food ordering and car classifieds businesses, in 23 countries across the continent.

Since its launch, Jumia has expanded to sell online in Cameroon, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, the Ivory Coast and Uganda. It also recently launched in Angola. 

“We are satisfying around 1,000 orders daily,” Jumia’s spokesman in the Ivory Coast says. “We expect this figure as well as sales to considerably increase this year.”

Jumia accepts cash on delivery, an important option for shoppers new to e-commerce and hesitant to pay online. The retailer also has set up pick-up stations across Africa for faster and more convenient deliveries to customers.

Jumia has 1,500 employees in Nigeria alone, including 150 customer service workers. It also delivers to all 36 states there within one to five days and operates a fleet of more than 500 vehicles. Jumia’s Nigeria business today sells more than 100,000 products and has more than 1 million customers. Jumia also operates more than 18 delivery hubs and a 90,000-square-foot warehouse in Nigeria. 

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