Klasha's new e-commerce integrations: Squarespace and Weebly

Klasha has announced another partnership to enable international merchants to accept payments in local African currencies from their African customers. This time it's with Squarespace and Weebly.

Squarespace is a leading all-in-one website-building and e-commerce platform. It allows users to create and modify web pages using pre-built website templates and drag-and-drop features.

Similarly, Weebly — which was acquired by Block Inc. (formerly Square) in May 2018— is a website-building platform that can be used to create a website, blog or online store.

Klasha is a cross-border startup building borderless payments for e-commerce in Africa. It's operating at the intersection of fintech and e-commerce.

"With the Squarespace and Weebly integrations, merchants outside Africa can allow African consumers to pay online on their website in African currencies without worrying about interchange fees", the founder and CEO of Klasha Jess Anuna said.

Jess launched Klasha in 2018 as a fashion e-commerce startup to make it easier for African consumers to patronise global fashion retailers directly. But three years later in May 2021, Klasha was launched in Nigeria with a different mission: build borderless payments for commerce in Africa.

Since then the San-Francisco-headquartered startup has been building payment integrations that allow African consumers to buy from global retailers online with their local currencies and get their items — as long as they're not perishable goods — anywhere they are in the continent. And it's using a two-pronged approach of launching products and features and securing partnerships with international platforms.

With this Squarespace and Weebly partnership, Klasha has now partnered with five international platforms, including OpenCart, Primer, and Ecwid. And it also has plug-ins for big e-commerce platforms such as WooCommerce and BigCommerce.

Klasha has also launched products and features such as:

• Klasha Checkout which can be integrated into any e-commerce platform, website or application. It allows international merchants to accept payments in local African currencies through mobile money, card, and M-Pesa — the mobile money service launched by Vodafone and Safaricom in 2007.
• Payment Links that can be created without a website, app or any coding skills, customised for different business needs, and shared across multiple channels including social media and emails.
• KlashaWire which allows African businesses to send large payments overseas in their local currencies. And in three business days, the recipient will also receive the money in the currency (USD, GBP or EUR) of their choice.
• Klasha App that allows users to make local and international online payments in local African currencies without restrictions — no monthly charges or transfer fees.
• Virtual cards that can be used to make international payments on platforms such as Netflix, Amazon, ASOS, Paypal, Google Pay, Spotify, and Apple Music.
• BaePay is a feature on the Klasha app that allows users to send money requests to their partners regardless of their location in the world.

"Klasha has invested heavily in building this library of e-commerce integrations and plug-ins to allow more global merchants to access African consumers seamlessly", Jess told Benjamindada.

In addition to the payment services provided, Klasha can ensure African consumers receive the items they purchase from international merchants because it has a logistics service — KlashaCargo — provided through partnerships with third-party logistics services.

With KlashaCargo, merchants that use Klasha Checkout can ship to their customers in Africa within five to nine days.

"Our merchants said to us, if we’re going to be able to accept payments from Africa, we need a way to seamlessly ship to Africa in a short amount of time and provide the best end-to-end logistics experience for our customers. And that’s what we’ve done", Jess told TechCrunch.

Klasha is currently operational in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia, according to a representative of the company. And it is backed by leading investors including Greycroft, Seedcamp, First Fund, Techstars, Plug and Play, and Practical VC.

Featured image courtesy archjoe