By Metridata Editorial Team · Updated October 2026 · 7 min read · Technology
A good online store in Kenya starts with where orders actually come from. Many begin in a WhatsApp chat, get paid through M-Pesa and are placed from a phone that is not the newest model. The design trends worth following in 2026 are the ones built around that reality.
This is a rewrite of a 2023 article. We kept what still holds up, added what has changed, and dropped three trends (AR and VR, voice search and eco-design messaging) that rarely pay off for a Kenyan store before the basics below are in place. Seven trends follow, then where to start.
1. Design for the chat as well as the page
The Communications Authority of Kenya’s customer satisfaction survey, which covers July 2024 to June 2025, found that mobile apps were used for 44.8% of online order placements and WhatsApp for another 20.2%. Websites were not where most orders began.
For a store website, that means the page often has one job. A shopper arrives from a link, checks the product, then asks a question on WhatsApp before paying. Design for that handoff:
- Put a WhatsApp button on every product page, with the product name already filled into the message.
- Give each product page a clear title and main image, so the link preview looks right when someone shares it in a chat.
- Show stock status and delivery time on the page, so fewer customers need to ask.
2. Checkout built around M-Pesa
The same survey found that 65.7% of online shoppers paid with mobile money at checkout, while cash on delivery still accounted for 13%. Build the checkout around those two facts.
- Use STK Push, so the payment prompt appears on the customer’s phone. Typing a paybill number and account number on a small screen is slow and easy to get wrong.
- Ask only for a name, a phone number and a delivery location. Do not force account creation before payment.
- Show the full total in KES, delivery included, before the payment step.
- Offer cash on delivery only where you can fulfil it reliably. Add card payment if you sell to the diaspora or to companies.
Our guide to M-Pesa website integration compares Daraja, payment gateways and till options.
3. Speed on mid-range phones
Google’s Core Web Vitals give you concrete targets. The main content should appear within 2.5 seconds, the page should respond to a tap within 200 milliseconds, and the layout shift score should stay below 0.1. Google measures these on real visits and judges a page at the 75th percentile, which means three in four visits need to meet the targets. Test on mobile at pagespeed.web.dev, not on your office laptop.
The usual fixes are not complicated:
- Resize and compress product photos before you upload them. A full-size photo straight from a phone camera is a common reason a product page is slow.
- Use WebP or AVIF where your platform supports them.
- Lazy-load images below the fold, but not the main product photo at the top.
- Set width and height on images so the page does not jump while it loads.
- Remove plugins and scripts you no longer use.
4. Simple pages made for thumbs
Minimal design is still the right call, mostly for practical reasons. A phone screen leaves little room, so each product page has to answer a few things quickly: what it is, what it costs and how to buy it.
- Keep the price and the buy button visible without scrolling.
- Use a single column on phones, with buttons big enough to hit with a thumb.
- Shoot products on a plain background, from more than one angle.
- Keep filters short. Five useful ones beat fifteen nobody opens.
5. Short product videos
A 15 to 30 second clip shot on a phone can show size, texture and how a product works. That answers questions that would otherwise arrive on WhatsApp. Keep the files small, do not autoplay with sound, and give each video a still image so the page loads quickly on mobile data. Live demos on social platforms suit some stores, but a recorded clip keeps working after the stream ends.
6. AI: product data first, chatbots second
Shoppers can now ask Google’s AI Mode and other assistants what to buy, and the answers draw on structured product data: names, prices, availability, images and reviews. Which shopping features are live in Kenya changes quickly, so check before you spend money on them. What costs little is getting the data right. Keep the Product markup on your pages accurate, keep price and stock identical everywhere you list an item, and collect real reviews. We cover the wider effect on search traffic in our post on how Kenyan businesses get cited by Google’s AI answers.
On the customer service side, a chatbot that answers “is this in stock?” at 11pm can save a sale. One that invents a delivery date can lose a customer and start a dispute. Test it with real customer messages before launch. Our seven-step chatbot testing checklist shows how. Personalised recommendations can wait until you have enough orders to learn from. A hand-picked “customers also bought” row works fine until then.
7. Trust signals near the buy button
Buyers who pay before they receive goods want reassurance. Put it next to the buy button, not in a footer nobody scrolls to:
- Delivery times and costs by area.
- A plain return and refund policy.
- Reviews from real customers, with photos if you can get them.
- A phone number, a physical location and your registered business name. Make sure the name on your till or paybill matches, so the M-Pesa confirmation looks familiar to the buyer.
Be careful with the contact details you collect. A phone number given for a delivery was given for that purpose, and asking for marketing consent separately is part of staying on the right side of Kenya’s Data Protection Act. We explain what the regulator has said in our post on M-Pesa customer lists and marketing consent.
Where to start
If you only have time for three changes this month:
- Add a WhatsApp button with a pre-filled message to every product page.
- Switch checkout to STK Push and cut the form down to name, phone and location.
- Run your busiest product page through PageSpeed on mobile and fix the biggest images first.
Not sure where your store stands? Book a free strategy call and we will go through it with you.
Frequently asked questions
Is M-Pesa enough, or do I need card payments?
Mobile money was the main way to pay in the Communications Authority survey, used by 65.7% of shoppers. Start there. Add card payments if you sell to the diaspora or to businesses that pay by card.
Do I need a mobile app?
Large marketplaces invest in apps because their customers shop often. Most single-brand stores do better starting with a fast mobile website and a WhatsApp button, then deciding on an app once orders justify it.
How fast should my store load?
Aim for the Core Web Vitals “good” targets above: main content within 2.5 seconds, responses within 200 milliseconds and a layout shift score below 0.1.
Should I add an AI chatbot?
Only if your team is missing enquiries and you are willing to test it first. A tested chatbot that hands tricky questions to a person is useful. An untested one is a risk.
Sources: ITWeb, The rise of WhatsApp in Kenya’s online shopping scene, reporting the Communications Authority of Kenya customer satisfaction survey for July 2024 to June 2025. web.dev, How the Core Web Vitals metrics thresholds were defined.
