CNRShop
Stage: Pre-seed, Angel
Looking for: Brand partners, investors
Industry: Retail, Fintech, & Live Mapping
Also available: ShopPIN
THE CONTEXT
Maps. Of streets. Avenues. Boulevards.
Highways, flyways, byways.
But in the Global South, a street is not always a street,
A road may have no numbers, an avenue is without trees,
A corner isn’t 90 degrees,
A shop is not always a shop.
the problem
The informal sector is made of 2.2 billion people.
In South Africa, the informal economy makes up 19.5% of total employment.
Within this, 314 000 are registered mobile vendors with no fixed location (and these are the traders we know about).
the challenge
The informal mobile vendors are invisible. Some are itinerant by nature, and others are affected by circumstance. When they move, customers struggle to find them. And FSPs, development agencies and brands struggle to help empower them because we don’t have enough info. With multiple addresses – and no proof – they struggle to access opportunity, apply for permits, and/or fend off harassment.
With the push for clean cities, local police who ignore international public space guidelines, the climate crisis, and escalating poverty (linked to changing schedules, different work times, transport difficulties and illness) they are falling further.
