Ex-Jumia and Supermart
co-founder, Raphael Afeador pointed out the need for more players in the eCommerce
sector in Nigeria. The consumer definitely would be on the
gaining side when we have more online stores.
In the course of this
post, we will not be looking at having more eCommerce platforms. Rather,
we’ll be looking at how Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) can leverage
on available online marketplaces for more exposure and sales. The
eCommerce industry in the country is still evolving and facing its numerous
challenges from regulations to logistics among others.
Sure, we have heard so
many times the need for business to own a website. But does every business
actually need one? Especially SMEs? As Gloo founder, Olumide Olusanya
affirms, running an eCommerce website on your own, in Nigeria, is extremely tough.
So recommending a proprietary online presence for an SME may not be a good
idea, considering there are other online marketplaces from where buyers
could locate them, with relatively little or no running costs as the case
maybe. And with these platforms, you get to sell products even without
owning a physical shop or store.
Let’s look at
the list:
Jumia MarketPlace
Jumia Nigeria started out
as an eCommerce platform with 100% in-house product inventory. But as of this
moment, allow business has a form of online kiosk and list their own
products.
Konga Mall
With Konga Mall, retails
and merchants can create and showcase their products to a much wider audience
and customers. Earlier in 2014, Konga opened up the stores for business to list and sell their
products.
Payporte
More like our every own
eBay, Payporte offer
opportunities to both individuals and businesses to sell their products – both
new and used ones.
GTBank’s SME MarketHub
One of the latest
entrants into the sector, SME MarketHub provides both businesses and individuals
alike the needed tools to trade online. GTBank through the MarketHub offers an
avenue for people to connect directly, buy and sell with much ease. And above
it all, it’s free for both the buyers and sellers, and you can list almost
anything and everything.
DealDey
DealDey is also another
online store in the country that allow business of all sizes to list their
products and service. Initially, DealDey did not make the list because the
store is solely for products that are offered at a very low price, however, the
platform allows the listing of services as well.
I could only recommend it
to any SME that’s buying products directly from the manufacturer at a very low
price and will be willing to give up not less than 30% of the selling price as
a discount. It’s also a good go for service providers since they have control
over the pricing of the service they are providing.
What do SMEs stand to
gain or lose from using the above listed platform?
The SMEs get more
exposure for their products which leads to more sales and revenue, considering
that these stores have an already growing customer base. And they can even
choose to have the store handle the logistics while they focus more on getting
the products ready.
Getting products listed
on these platforms means that the SMEs have shops open and operational 24/7,
and you only part with a particular percentage of your sales as commissions.
Registering an online
presence for your business in this digital age, surely is part of the key
factors to the success of the business.
No comments:
Post a Comment