The workflow
Eight stages from a stated requirement to a settled, delivered order - and three statuses we deliberately keep apart.
AfrexMarket supports more than one kind of transaction inside the same platform. Sometimes the goods sit with a supplier we already hold and the commercial terms come back quickly. More often, in the early stages, a requirement arrives that nobody on the register can serve, and our procurement team goes out and finds the supply. Both run through the same record, so the second kind teaches the platform something the first kind already knew.
You submit what you need and ask us to keep it off the floor. It is worked by the trade desk and disclosed only to the suppliers we select for that specific opportunity. Right when you know what you need but not who should supply it.
Post a need
You post anonymously, or you browse what is already on the corridor and shortlist the posts you want introduced. Right when you want to see live activity before committing to anything.
Go to the floorYou state category, description, specification or grade, quantity, unit, destination and required date, with your company and contact details. The request is recorded as an RFQ and given a reference.
Our desk reviews the request, resolves anything ambiguous in the specification and decides what evidence the transaction will need.
We filter the supplier register on category, location, capacity, verification status, delivery geography and lead time - and a person reviews the shortlist. Where nobody fits, we source externally and record what we find.
Suppliers quote against your requirement. Their offer is held in its original form: unit price, total, lead time, payment terms, validity and attachments.
We build one buyer-facing quotation. The goods are at the quoted price, and logistics - freight, clearing and border costs, duties and taxes - is its own charge to the buyer, calculated on the invoice of what they require, with any currency cost shown. The rate used is recorded on the quotation, not looked up later.
Acceptance creates an order with its own reference, tied to the exact quotation version you accepted. Later changes create a new version; the old one is kept.
The order raises a payment instruction into Afrexpay carrying the order reference, amount, transaction currency, intended settlement currency and beneficiary. One order can carry more than one payment - a deposit and a balance, a partial settlement, a refund.
Supplier preparation, collection, transport, border processing, clearing and delivery. Proof of delivery is attached to the order and the transaction closes.
An order can be commercially confirmed and fully paid while the goods are still standing at a border post. Collapsing that into one general status would make the transaction impossible to answer questions about, so we do not.
A requirement that no registered supplier can meet is not a dead end. Our procurement officers open an external sourcing case, find a supplier by hand, verify them to the level the transaction warrants and attach them to the request.
That supplier then stays on the register. Manual sourcing is not wasted effort - it is how the market gets built. Over time a larger share of requirements match against suppliers we already know and have already watched perform.
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