Online trading, also known as e-commerce, has been adopted by most traders in Kampala, which has resulted in most arcades and shops in the city increasingly becoming stores and empty as traders choose to operate via different online platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Youtube, and Instagram.

Jimmy Ssentongo, a reknown businessman dealing in shoes and men’s clothes in Kikubo, Kampala, noted that he was optimistic to fully concentrate on online trading since it incurs fewer costs both administratively and non-administratively.

“First and foremost, online trading involves fewer operational costs like rent, electricity, meals, and transport costs since it only requires a phone and data, unlike running a shop, which involves rent, taxes, electricity bills, transport, workers, and many others, which makes it so hard for one to gain enough profits,” Ssentongo said.

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Ssentongo further highlighted that many businessmen have resorted to online selling as a way of dodging rental costs, whereas social media platforms like Jumia, Glovo, and many others are pivotal platforms where sellers and buyers can interact to transact businesses.

However, some traders have reasoned that the unfair policies put in place by the government for traders are not economically helping them, for example, the introduction of the Electronic Fiscal Receipting and Invoicing Solution (EFRIS), which economically doesn’t reasonate well with uneducated traders.

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Also, the government’s policy of relocating street vendors from the city affects many traders in the arcades since vendors sell merchandise on behalf of shop owners on a commission-based mutual arrangement.