OmniRetail, Africa’s fastest-growing B2B e-commerce startup, has launched 50 AI-powered micro fulfilment centres known as OmniHub Franchise, across Southwest Nigeria. These strategically located warehouses aim to improve inventory management, streamline sales, and expedite delivery times for retailers.
“We have not stopped being asset-light. It is our core strategy,” said CEO Deepankar Rustagi during the tour of one of the 50 Hubs in Ijora, Lagos. “These hubs are owned by our distribution partners who plan to open more hubs in the future.”
OmniHub Franchise will assist business owners in starting their FMCG distribution business. They will leverage OmniRetail’s network, which connects manufacturers to retailers, to scale. “All that is needed is for them to manage the inventory and delivery orders,” Kapil Tiwari, OmniRetail’s Senior Marketing Lead, told Condia.
“Pioneering this warehouse model was initially a test run with several iterations,” Deepankar Rustagi, CEO of OmniRetail said. The test run has proven successful, opening 50 locations and serving 80,000 retailers in 10 Nigerian cities. The plan is to replicate the hubs across 300 locations in Nigeria in 2025. Already the hubs exist in Accra and Ivory Coast, solidifying the company’s latest expansion drive, Rustagi said. The company has also begun to explore new verticals, such as pharmaceuticals and cold storage, to diversify its offerings further.
