In Nigeria, the e-Commerce ecosystem is a huge reality and is a catalyst for economic growth in the country. Indeed, e-Commerce gives to Nigerian businesses the possibility to significantly extend the reach of wholesale and retail trade in the country, which leads to a boost of profits and job creation.
What is more, people in Nigeria commonly use e-commerce sites to buy and sell second items online through free-classifieds sites like this one, which reveals an economical growth and improvement within individuals and not only large companies.
Oil, mineral and human resources and the population of people are a blessing for Nigeria and make it a pointer for huge e-Commerce business. Some even consider it might emerge as Africa’s e-Commerce leader. Out of a population estimated at 170 million people, there are over 160 million potential buyers and sellers of different items on every street. The thing that makes e-Commerce so successful in Nigeria is that Nigerians love to shop, but there’s an absence of a well-structured retail chain, too few shopping malls and poor transportation network, which makes it difficult to access the product. And that’s where the e-Commerce comes in handy.
According to Euromoney International, online sales in Nigeria have multiplied between 2011 and 2012 from $10.5 million to about $3 billion, making e-Commerce the country’s second-biggest economy. This is also because what looks like a simple internet transaction includes, between the online order and the final delivery, a series of Nigerian business realities, such as the financial services sector, the transport sector, the postal sector and the telecommunication sector. What works against this incredible economic resource is an inadequate broadband access, the high cost of internet and mobile communications services, a low awareness among the public of the relevance of such type of commerce to their lives, a low consumer confidence in using electronic payment channels and a low availability of skilled personnel among others.
However, should this resources improve during the next few years, e-Commerce in Nigeria would probably experiment a dramatic boost, but we shall have to wait to see it for ourselves in (we hope) a near future.