It appears that OLX, has shut down its offices in Nigeria. The workers were told this decision on Tuesday via a note of termination which starts in March for staff and April for management. The move would affect 100’s of employees.
OLX is an online marketplace owned by Naspers
Uche Nwagboso the Public Relations and Communications Lead in OLX Nigeria in an e-mail confirmed that has decided to shut down its business operations in Nigeria. Financial compensation will be given to workers affected.
“We made a difficult but important decision in Nigeria to consolidate our operations between some of our offices internationally. Our marketplace will continue to operate here – uninterrupted – as it has since 2010, and we remain committed to the many people here who use our platform to buy and sell every month.
“We continue to be focused on constantly innovating to make sure that OLX remains the top classified platform in the country. Of course, we are committed to helping our affected colleagues during this transition and have already offered them meaningful financial and other support.
“As we’ve expressed to them directly, we are extremely grateful for their many significant contributions to OLX’s success.”
OLX, started in Nigeria in 2012, and by 2015 had more than three million sellers and buyers registered on its platform. Its stock of items for sale were valued to be up to N12.1tn in 2016.
This has been happening in other e-commerce sectors, for example, Efritin.com closed down in 2015, stating that the logistics of running costs were too hard to bear. Konga.com, who had Naspers as a major investor, also sold its business to Zinox Group last week.