A number of e-commerce companies in Kenya have made the call for a proper physical address system to be created because existing methods of locating residences or workplaces have become a hindrance to business. They allege that making deliveries in the East African country has become unnecessarily expensive and sometimes nearly impossible.

Parinaz Firozi, MD of Jumia Kenya says reliable addresses are absolutely essential. "You are forced to assign riders to deliver in their area of residence since they know the terrain, streets and the buildings, delivery is a delicate balance between cost, time and efficiency. You have to get it right."

While street and road naming have proved to be helpful political events instigated a change and that has made Kenya's current addressing unreliable and speed is necessary in delivery like in the case of food where so many things can go wrong as explained Duncan Muchangi, MD, Hellofood Kenya.

"Food is sensitive, your customer wants it hot and on time, 1 hour is the delivery time we offer but if our rider gets lost for 30 minutes chances are the customer could look for another alternative while you bear the cost. It's necessary to fix this problem."

Partnerships in the courier industry may help to alleviate the challenge. OLX and G4S recently signed a partnership that will allow OLX sellers to send packages to buyers through G4S.

Geoffrey Mwove, Chairman of the Courier Industry Association and Director of courier at G4S Kenya, "The government should roll out a national and regional physical addressing system, Streets, roads and blocks need to be named and marked permanently. Property developers and gated estates should also erect signs, google maps help but are not precise in direction."

Mwove added that a combination of the physical addressing and mobile applications can help to make inroads in order to solve the problem address problem.