Masoko, the Swahili word for market, is also the name of a new e-commerce marketplace that would soon go live in Kenya.

Rita Okuthe, Director of Enterprise Business at Safaricom, the telco behind Masoko, says there are plans for the marketplace to be "a little bit more than an African equivalent of Amazon.com's Marketplace".

Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore said the platform, which will go live within 8 months, is currently being tested in-house and would focus on formal retail and informal online trading in Kenya.

Although the company did not reveal the platform's URL, Masoko.com and Masoko.co.ke currently have 'Coming Soon' messages on their homepages.

Furthermore, Whois.com revealed that both domain names were registered by Safaricom.

Collymore added that the platform will not be holding inventory; he added that not anyone can sell on Masoko.

"Safaricom is carefully screening all the merchants before giving them access to the platform," he said.

Filling Jumia Market void

The decision of ecommerce giant Jumia to shut down its marketplace could potentially create a launching pad for Masoko.

Jumia said it shut down its marketplace to boost its growth and strengthen the group's presence in Kenya.

According to Sam Chappatte, Jumia Kenya's managing director, by integrating Jumia Market into Jumia's ecommerce operations, Jumia will be able to focus its attention on projects with the highest possible return on investment.

Safaricom on the other hand is aiming to introduce another product that would be as dominant as its M-Pesa mobile-phone money transfer service.

M-Pesa will be one of the payment options on the platform.

For Masoko, it has set lofty goals including a 72-hour turnaround time while targeting MSMEs that are already using social media platforms to reach potential customers.

"If you look at Facebook and Instagram, there's a lot of online/offline selling that happens and one of the reasons why they're popular in Kenya is because small-scale, middle-scale merchants use it as a sales tool," Okuthe said.