How to prepare for The African Marketplace 2026
What a small business should prepare before The African Marketplace 2026, and how to follow up so new contacts become buyers.
The African Marketplace 2026 is coming up, and someone representing Ink and Pixel will be there. If you are exhibiting, selling or going to meet buyers, preparation decides most of what you take home. You want a place online where people can find you again and a simple way for them to order. You also want product details ready to send, and a plan for the week after. This article goes through each of these, drawing on what we have learnt building systems for small companies that sell across borders. For dates, venue and exhibitor information, check the event's own site, which is the only reliable source.
We are paying attention to this one for a personal reason as well as a business one. Our two founders have roots in Ivory Coast and Kenya, and much of our work sits where African businesses meet buyers in other countries. Events that put those businesses in front of new customers matter to us, and we think they matter for where African trade is heading.
What to have ready before the event
Most conversations at a marketplace last a few minutes. The businesses that turn them into orders have the answers to the obvious questions ready before anyone asks. Here is what we would prepare:
- A one-line description of what you sell, who usually buys it and which countries you can ship to.
- A price list, or at least price ranges, with your minimum order and the currency you invoice in.
- Clear photos of each product on a plain background, saved on your phone so you can send them on the spot.
- A card or a printed QR code that points to somewhere useful, not just a phone number.
- Your answer to "how long does delivery take?" for your two or three most likely destinations.
None of this needs software. A shared folder on your phone and an hour of work the week before will cover most of it.
Why your stand needs a home online
People walk past dozens of stands in a day. They remember a name, maybe a product, and look you up later on the bus home. If that search finds nothing, or finds a social page last updated two years ago, the conversation ends there.
What they need is one page that loads quickly on a phone, shows your products with prices or a way to ask for them, and says plainly how to order. For many buyers, ordering by WhatsApp or email is easier than a full online shop, and it is much cheaper for you to run. Seven Series, an artisanal soap house from Ivory Coast whose website we built, works this way: a product catalogue, a care and legal page, and orders taken by WhatsApp or email.
If you sell to buyers who read different languages, put your key pages in those languages. A French-speaking buyer in Abidjan and an English-speaking one in Nairobi should both understand what you sell and how to buy it without guessing. If you have no site at all, our websites start at €399 one-off plus the monthly plan from €40 a month, and the Essential tier goes live in 24 hours, which is quick enough to sort out before an event.
The week after matters more than the day itself
The stack of cards you bring home loses value every day you leave it alone. By the following week, most people will have forgotten which stand was yours.
On the day, write a note on the back of each card about what that person wanted: a sample, a price for 500 units, a distributor contact. Then, within two or three days, send each one a short message that mentions your conversation and gives them the specific thing they asked for. A generic "nice to meet you" gets ignored. "Here is the price for 500 bars, delivered to Lagos, as we discussed" gets a reply.
Keep a simple sheet with the name, company, country, what they asked for, what you sent and the date of your next contact. Check it every Monday for a month. This is dull work, and it is where most event leads die.
It is also the kind of task a small AI system handles well. It can draft follow-up messages from your notes, sort contacts by country or product, and remind you who is still waiting for an answer. You still read and send every message yourself.
Selling across borders starts with paperwork
A buyer in another country will ask for things a local customer never does. Depending on the product and the destination, that can include certificates of origin, invoices in a particular format, product specifications, quality or safety documents and your tax registration details. These requirements vary a lot by country and by product, and they change. Before you promise anything, check with a customs broker, your chamber of commerce or your accountant.
For agribusinesses, supplier paperwork is often the slowest part of the whole process. We built Quintal for this, a supplier paperwork system for agribusinesses in Ivory Coast and Kenya. It is currently shown as four demos with the tax offices simulated, so you can see how it works before deciding whether something like it fits your business.
Even without any system, keep one folder per buyer country with the documents you have already produced. The second order to the same country is far quicker when you are not starting from scratch.
What we will be doing there
Our representative is going to listen. We want to hear which tasks take up the most time for African businesses trying to sell further afield, whether that is answering enquiries in several languages, chasing paperwork or keeping a catalogue up to date. That is how we decide what to build next.
If you will be at the event and want to talk, send us a message through our contact page and we will reply within two working days.
Before then, try one thing this week: search your business name on your phone as if you were a buyer who met you at a stand. If what you find would not lead you to an order, fix that first. And if one task already eats your week, the five questions in our scoping wizard will give you a draft plan for automating it in a few minutes.