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Community-based delivery platform Ruxster has launched in Ghana, connecting travellers with online shoppers in Africa to facilitate easy and affordable deliveries.

Launched earlier this month, Ruxster gives online shoppers access to a pool of community-driven travellers, who can make money by delivering goods purchased online to shoppers.

“We realised that, every day, people always ask for people travelling or coming into the country simply because they cannot afford the courier services fee for shipping of items,” Ruxster business lead Ibrahim Babatunde told Disrupt Africa.

“On the other side, people travel in and out of the country all the time. Ruxster connects this set of travellers to people that need things from their country of destination.”

The platform serves as a middleman that ensures security via an escrow system. While the current price for shipping items from abroad to Africa is on average between 50 and 70 per cent of the cost of the item, with Ruxster delivery fees are as low as 20 per cent.

The startup came about after Babatunde tried to ship goods worth US$300 from India, and realised the cheapest shipping he could access was around US$200.

“Several companies have tried to hack this solution, but as much as we respect their effort, one thing that is peculiar to Africa is the different culture that abounds. Most of the existing solutions are either doing consolidated shipping with a predefined shipping cost on the buyer,” he said.

“Our system is built on existing culture and is user-centered, as we give them full control of the process, ranging from the point of requesting an item, the pricing, and the whole delivery facilitation.”

Ruxster is currently bootstrapped, but has secured a partnership with online community Accra Expat, which has around 10,000 members, as well as some local e-commerce stores.

It is piloting in Ghana, but already receiving requests from Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Kenya.

“The plan is to network these countries by the beginning of the first quarter next year and scale into major African countries subsequently,” Babatunde said.

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