Payaza Africa has launched Shopaza, a cloud-based e-commerce platform designed to help African merchants build online stores, manage products, accept payments, and sell across multiple markets.
The platform was unveiled in Lagos on June 18, 2026, marking Payaza’s expansion from payments infrastructure into broader digital commerce enablement.
Shopaza is built for merchants who want to move beyond fragmented online selling into a more structured commerce system. It allows businesses to create digital storefronts, manage product listings, process payments, support deliveries, and access customers across local and international markets.
At launch, the platform was positioned for merchants in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and Tanzania, with support also extending to North America and Europe. This gives Shopaza a clear cross-border focus, especially for African businesses serving customers in the diaspora.
Speaking at the launch, Taiwo Adeeko, Global Head of Operations at Payaza Africa, described Shopaza as a digital ecosystem built to help businesses grow beyond geographical limits.
“Shopaza has officially been deployed to production and is live across Africa,” Adeeko said.
From Payments to Commerce
Shopaza represents a strategic expansion for Payaza.
The company has built its reputation around payment infrastructure, but with Shopaza, it is moving deeper into the merchant operating layer. Instead of only helping businesses receive money, Payaza now wants to help them manage the full online selling journey.
That includes storefront creation, product management, customer access, payment processing, settlement, and delivery options.
The move reflects a wider shift in African fintech, where payment companies are no longer stopping at transactions. They are building adjacent products that help merchants sell, manage customers, understand demand, and operate more efficiently.
For Payaza, Shopaza is the clearest expression of that strategy so far.
A Smart Storefront for African Merchants
During the product presentation, Kehinde Omotosho, Head of Engineering at Payaza Africa, said Shopaza was created to give business owners direct access to customers across multiple countries.
He described the platform as a smart storefront built around inclusion, scale, and fast transactions.
The proposition is direct. A merchant should be able to set up an online store without hiring developers, manage products without relying on disconnected tools, accept payments across currencies, and control how products are delivered to customers.
This is important in African markets, where many small businesses still sell through WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, exhibitions, and informal referrals.
Those channels have helped businesses gain visibility, but they do not always provide the structure needed for scale. Orders can be scattered across chats. Inventory may be tracked manually. Payment confirmation can depend on screenshots or bank alerts. Customer records are often fragmented.
Shopaza is entering that gap as a commerce infrastructure product for businesses that have customers online but do not yet have a proper digital sales system.
AI at the Centre of the Product
A major part of Shopaza’s pitch is its artificial intelligence capability.
According to Payaza, the platform uses AI to help merchants set up and manage products more easily. Instead of manually creating every product listing, merchants can upload product images and allow the system to generate relevant information such as descriptions, pricing guidance, size options, colour variations, and other product details.
That feature directly targets one of the biggest barriers for small businesses trying to operate online: the time and skill required to create and maintain a digital catalogue.
For many merchants, the issue is not a lack of products or customers. The issue is the operational burden of uploading items, writing descriptions, updating stock, managing prices, and making the store look credible.
By making product setup faster and less technical, Shopaza is trying to reduce the distance between informal selling and structured e-commerce.
Esther Afia, Product Manager at Payaza Africa, also highlighted the role of AI in helping buyers and sellers access product information and market value insights across regions. This suggests Payaza wants the platform to function not only as a storefront, but also as an intelligence layer for commerce.
Payments, Settlement, and Cross-Border Selling
Shopaza is built on Payaza’s existing payment infrastructure, giving the platform a payments foundation from day one.
The company says the platform supports multi-currency payments, a feature that is critical for merchants selling beyond their home markets. For African businesses targeting diaspora customers, regional buyers, or international clients, payment friction remains one of the biggest barriers to conversion.
Payaza is betting that a storefront connected directly to payment rails can make cross-border selling easier.
The platform also places emphasis on settlement speed. For small businesses, cash flow is not a minor issue. Delayed access to funds can affect restocking, fulfilment, and working capital. Payaza’s pitch is that merchants should be able to sell, receive funds, and reinvest into the business with less friction.
This could become one of Shopaza’s strongest differentiators if the platform can consistently deliver fast and reliable settlement across multiple markets.
Trust as Infrastructure
Trust was another major theme at the launch.
Opeyemi Disu, Head of Product at Payaza, said Shopaza was designed to address concerns that often discourage online transactions in emerging markets.
He identified verified merchants, secure payment systems, buyer protection mechanisms, and real-time transaction confirmations as some of the platform’s key trust layers.
This matters because e-commerce adoption in Africa is not held back by technology alone. Many buyers still worry about whether a seller is real, whether the product will arrive, whether payment is safe, and whether complaints will be resolved.
Shopaza’s trust architecture is Payaza’s attempt to make online buying and selling feel more secure for both sides.
For sellers, a verified and structured storefront can increase credibility. For buyers, payment protection and transaction confirmation can reduce the uncertainty that often comes with buying from unknown social media vendors.
Logistics Flexibility
Payaza also positioned logistics as part of Shopaza’s value proposition.
According to the company, merchants will retain control over how products reach customers. They can use their preferred delivery partners or logistics services integrated into the Shopaza ecosystem.
That flexibility is important because logistics remains one of the hardest parts of e-commerce in African markets. Delivery quality, location coverage, cost, speed, and reliability vary widely.
By allowing merchants to choose between existing delivery relationships and integrated options, Shopaza avoids locking businesses into one fulfilment model.
A Competitive Market
Shopaza is entering a crowded merchant enablement market.
African businesses already have access to several storefront, payment, and commerce tools, including products from Paystack, Flutterwave, Interswitch, Bumpa, Selar, and other providers.
This means Payaza’s challenge is not simply to launch a platform. It must prove that Shopaza can give merchants a better operating experience than existing alternatives.
Its strongest advantages appear to be AI-powered store setup, multi-currency payment support, Payaza’s existing payment infrastructure, settlement speed, trust features, and cross-border market access.
The real test will be adoption.
Merchants will judge Shopaza by practical outcomes: ease of setup, payment reliability, delivery support, settlement speed, customer trust, and whether the platform helps them increase sales.
What Comes Next
Shopaza gives Payaza a broader role in African digital commerce.
The company is no longer speaking only to merchants who need to process payments. It is now speaking to merchants who need to run online businesses.
That is a more ambitious play.
If Payaza can convert its payments infrastructure into a reliable commerce operating system, Shopaza could become a useful platform for African SMEs trying to move beyond social media selling and participate in wider regional and global markets.
The opportunity is clear. Social media gave African businesses visibility. Shopaza wants to give them structure.
For Payaza, the launch is not just a product release. It is a statement that the next phase of African fintech will be shaped by companies that can connect payments, commerce, trust, and cross-border access into one ecosystem.
