HONIARA, Solomon Islands – October 27, 2025 – Toro announced Monday it has secured strategic partnerships with Smart Technology and Cab’It ahead of its public launch, establishing Solomon Islands’ first comprehensive e-commerce platform with integrated mobile money payments.
The female-led start-up is tackling barriers that have kept 73.3 percent of the country’s rural population excluded from digital commerce: fragmented logistics, absent delivery infrastructure, and limited payment options.
“We’re solving the fundamental problems that have prevented e-commerce from working in Solomon Islands,” said Angellina Fakaia, Toro’s founder and CEO. “You need three things to work simultaneously – a marketplace, payment solutions, and delivery networks. We’ve secured all three through local collaborations.”
Under the agreements, Smart Technology will operate Pick-Up and Drop-Off (PUDO) stations across Honiara, while Cab’It handles end-to-end parcel delivery. The stations will serve as community hubs where customers can browse products with staff assistance, place orders, arrange payments, and collect packages.
“We’re firm believers that local partnerships accelerate start-ups in their early stages,” Fakaia said. “Smart Technology and Cab’It already have the trust and presence. We’re combining our online platform with their physical capabilities.”
Each PUDO station will feature secure storage cabinets, tablets running Toro’s platform, and trained staff to guide customers through the complete shopping experience – particularly important in a country where many lack confidence navigating online platforms independently.
Toro operates across three categories: physical goods, professional services, and digital products. The platform allows vendors to sell everything from fresh produce to repair services to digital music and artwork.
The digital products category represents a breakthrough for local content creators. Musicians, artists, educators, and designers can now set their own prices and earn from streaming or downloads – creating formal monetization channels that previously didn’t exist.
“An artist can their virtual tours. A graphic designer can sell e-templates. A baker can sell online baking courses,” Fakaia explained. “We’re building an entire digital economy ecosystem.”
Toro is also launching an affiliate marketing program modelled after TikTok Shop Affiliate Program, partnering with content creators and influencers who will earn commissions promoting products through social media.
“Content creators are already trusted voices in their communities,” Fakaia noted. “By partnering with them as affiliates, we’re leveraging existing trust while creating new income streams.”
Critically, Toro is the nation’s first e-commerce platform to offer M-Selen mobile money as a payment method – a solution that required months of discussions and technical planning between the companies.
“It seems obvious – M-Selen has 300,000+ users and the country’s largest agent network,” Fakaia said. “But no platform had actually embedded M-Selen into their checkout before. We spent months working out the technical embedding and transaction flows.”
With 80 percent of Solomon Islanders lacking access to commercial banking, mobile money integration is essential. Customers can pay directly from their M-Selen wallets, eliminating the need for bank accounts or credit cards.
Toro projects 30,000 transactions in year one, scaling to 90,000 annually by year three, representing SBD 27 million in gross merchandise value. The platform service fee is ten (10) percent commission on physical and digital products, and services, capped at $50. This means, Toro does not charge more than $50 for its platform services.
By year three, the platform could generate over SBD 1.5 million in distributed income across PUDO agents (earning SBD 10,560-23,400 annually), digital creators, and affiliate marketers.
The three-month pilot will test the model across Honiara before expanding to provincial centres including Auki, Gizo, Noro, and Kirakira in early 2026.
Toro’s launch directly addresses priorities in Solomon Islands’ National E-commerce Strategy 2022-2027, which identifies logistics, payments, and rural-urban integration as critical barriers.
The platform also aligns with the Pacific Regional E-commerce Strategy, positioning it as a potential model for replication across other Pacific countries facing similar infrastructure challenges.
Solomon Islands’ digital economy shows nascent growth despite persistent challenges. Internet penetration stands at 42.5 percent (352,000 users), with 547,000 mobile connections representing 66 percent of the 840,000 population. However, retail data prices remain high despite improvements in undersea cable infrastructure.
Previous e-commerce attempts in the Pacific have struggled to achieve sustainable scale, often underestimating the importance of simultaneous progress on payments, logistics, and user support.
“The graveyard of Pacific e-commerce start-ups is littered with platforms that assumed if you build it, they will come,” said a regional digital economy analyst who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Toro’s approach – building physical infrastructure alongside the online marketplace and securing logistics partnerships before launch suggests they’ve learned from others’ mistakes.”
Questions remain about vendor acquisition, content moderation, and whether transaction volumes will justify infrastructure investment. Managing three marketplace categories plus an affiliate program adds operational complexity.
Toro’s public launch is scheduled for a week’s time, with vendor onboarding and customer registration opening throughout October for Beta Testing. The platform operates via web app, with its app version to come shortly after launch.
“We’re not trying to be Amazon or Upwork,” Fakaia concluded. “We’re trying to be Toro – a platform built specifically for Solomon Islands, designed around its constraints, and powered by partnerships with organizations that understand this market. If it works here, it can work anywhere in the Pacific.”
About Toro Online Marketplace
Toro is Solomon Islands’ first integrated e-commerce platform combining product sales, service bookings, and digital content monetization. Founded in 2025 by CEO Angellina Fakaia, the platform offers M-Selen mobile money payments, assisted-service PUDO stations, and an affiliate marketing program. Toro targets 30,000 transactions in its first year, aligned with the Solomon Islands National E-commerce Strategy 2022-2027.
Media Contact:
Angellina Fakaia, Chief Executive Officer
Email: ceo@toro-official.store
Phone: +677 7756474
Location: Ngossi Ridge, Honiara, Solomon Islands
Editor’s Note: Toro Online Marketplace provided background materials and projections cited in this report. The company is privately held and did not disclose funding sources. Financial projections represent company estimates and have not been independently verified.
