Rocket Internet owned food delivery company, Jumia Food, recently rolled out a new outlook. That is for both their website and mobile apps for iOS and Android.
According to Timothy Mugume, the recently appointed Jumia Food Country Manager for Uganda, the new look is for the entire continent.
This, he told me, was "was part of the plan for continuous improvement, geared towards improved customer experience."
The new look is very visual. And Timothy believes that the customers "can [now] get a real feel of the dishes" because "food is very visual."
Yet, when you take a close look at both the web and mobile looks of Jumia food and Uber Eats, there's little difference.
[caption id="attachment_5153" align="aligncenter" width="1350"]
A screenshot of Uber Eats website[/caption]
Jumia Food has adopted the minimalist and very visual outlook that Uber Eats has. Although Jumia Food's platform is a little bit more crowded and zoomed out.
Plus, Uber Eats only has an option for entering your delivery address. Jumia Food instead asks you to enter your City and a subset of that city in a section that asks you to "select your area".
When you look to the top right corner, you'll also notice that Jumia Food also placed its signing in and register buttons together with a "Help" button. Though they are bundled together and Uber Eat's are separated.
Also read: Simba Food joins Jumia Food, Yum Deliveries in Uganda’s food delivery business
Substantial differences only kick in when you start scrolling down. The same similarities apply to the two when you check out their mobile.
But, this shouldn't be surprising if you have followed Rocket Internet's journey. Cloning is at the center of the Germany-based incubator's model.
In 2015, while giving a speech at Disrupt London, Oliver Samwer, co-founder of Rocket Internet, talked about the cloning culture that has come to define the company.
Oliver "argued that entrepreneurship is a holistic endeavor — involving many more tricky pieces than just having a good idea" according to TechCrunch.
"If you look at entrepreneurship one piece is the idea. But to get it done and to get it done in a sustainable way I think is a very different one,” he told the Disrupt London audience.
“If you look at emerging markets if this were easy just go and recreate Nigerian Amazon. Or just go to Indonesia and recreate Brightcove. Or go to Myanmar and create Booking.com. Then I think a lot of people would have done it.”
CB Insights compiled a list of companies and products that Rocket Internet has cloned and compared their performance. This includes Airbnb, Uber, Stripe, Blue Apron and more.
Also read: Jumia Uganda unveils the second warehouse for the first time
Wired, in 2012 - incidentally the year Jumia - ran an article titled "Inside the clone factory: the story of the Samwer brothers and Rocket Internet."