How Dakar's Maket Platform Tackles Africa's Second-Hand Clothing Waste

Fatou Dieng left her banking job and personal shopping side hustle to launch Maket in Dakar in January 2025—a second-hand fashion platform that acts as trusted intermediary to solve trust and scalability issues in Africa’s used-clothing market. The platform handles photography, cleaning, pricing, and delivery while ensuring seller anonymity to address cultural concerns like maraboutage fears, taking 25% commission per sale while sellers retain 75%.

This matters because Africa floods with low-quality second-hand clothing imports—Ghana alone imported 147,000 tonnes in 2023 worth $121 million—undermining local textile industries and creating environmental waste as nearly half becomes immediate landfill. Maket offers a circular alternative that keeps value local, having sold over 700 items with 42% repeat buyers since launch.

Maket works with Logidoo and Afrety for logistics and DEM for last-mile delivery in Dakar, with Dieng noting they intentionally kept operational margins thin to prioritize standardization before expanding to Ivory Coast, Guinea, and Benin. Her recent appointment as eTrade for Women Advocate by the UN and WTO signals growing recognition for Africa-led solutions to global fashion waste.

Will platforms like Maket reshape how Africans engage with second-hand fashion by prioritizing trust, anonymity, and local economic benefit over importing waste disguised as charity?

SOURCE: https://techcabal.com/2026/08/25/francophone-weekly-by-techcabal-037/