Hi Guys, my name is Ferdinand Ezeaniekwe, I’m a tech enthusiast, Entrepreneur and a Business man.
I am the founder of Ferdicon.com, Nigeria Gadget and Accessory mall, we sell phone and computer accessories, and other smart gadget.
I started Ferdicon two years ago as a Vendor on Jumia and Konga, where I sold Phone cases and Tempered Glass Screen protectors for Phones and Tablet. The Journey so far with Jumia and Konga in this business has taught me a lot and I have sold thousands of product.
I transitioned into Ferdicon.com on 14th February, 2017 and the result so far is highly encouraging and challenging too. I Hardly have any spare time, but when I do, I love watching movies and listening to Music.
Am really honored sharing my experience with you guys and I will answer your questions regarding E-commerce business in Nigeria and Ferdicon.com www.ferdicon.com
The name Ferdicon is well Known when it comes to Phone accessories especially phone cases & cover, and moreover a lot my customers (Online & Offline) already know me as Ferdicon.
My first question is about your business model and structure. How have you differentiated Ferdicon from your major competitors (Jumia & Konga)? What measures did you employ to ensure customers have a better experience shopping from your store?
Ferdicon is focused on Phone & Computer Accessories and our Target customers are people who use Smart Phones and computers and are living in Lagos.
The Major difference between Ferdicon & other online stores is that Ferdicon only sells Phone & Computer Accessories and we have the best price. Ferdicon Offers Free Delivery within Lagos and same day delivery for a little fee.
We offer 7 Day return policy on all of our product. Any customer that receives an order 12 hours after clicking “Add to cart” will definitely be happy and that’s what we can offer to our customer. FAST DELIVERY
Logistics: I’m aware logistics is at crux of a well run ecommerce platform. How do you handle your logistics. Is it outsourced? If yes, which company handles it. If no, how cost effective is it? pulling together your own in-house logistics team. Do you own your inventory?? How do you optimize for same day deliveries, if you don’t own your inventory??
POD: Would you be comfortable with eliminating POD from your platform? How do you minimize the possibility of returns from POD failure??
Marketing: What’s your marketing budget like?? Marketing strategy?? Which channels do you optimize for the most?? SEO? Facebook? Etc… Do you focus on specific demographics while targeting?? If yes, how do you decide which demographics to focus on.
Callcommerce: Do customers place orders via phone calls?? If yes, what’s the comparative difference between checkout orders vs call orders??
Hi Gabriel
Your questions define a lot about running an e-commerce business. Firstly Logistics We have outsourced 90% of our logistic to KOS (www.kos.ng ) which is very cost effective and it saves us a lot of work. KOS Handles orders & returns within and outside Lagos, and their Platform offers Perfect tracking system which enables customers to track their order. Then we have in-house dispatch riders who are always available to deliver Express orders (same day delivery)
We have inventory, but we still rely on our partners in computer village for few items and our business is located in Computer Village, Ikeja which gives us direct access to our partners anytime.
POD We are currently updating our platform to optimize sales and to reduce returns and yes we are going to remove POD on any order going outside Lagos and limit POD only to orders below NGN20,000
Marketing We go straight to target our direct customer using Facebook Insight and that have proven useful, another channel that brings sale is Instagram and we advertise in few blogs.
We made use of keywords in designing our website and uploading products. We’re building a tech blog around products we sell to give customer better understanding of the products and to increase sales. Callcommerce We don’t actually get a lot of calls, we’ve noticed that customer prefer sending messages via WhatsApp or our chat messenger on our website. For now, I don’t have much data on the difference between checkout orders and call orders, but we have more order via our website
Hi, mine is not a question, I just want to point out the fact that you are really doing a Great thing with ferdicon.com and Nigeria needs more of your kind. pls keep it up.
@Sire_Sommy
The major challenge in eCommerce is return which is as a result of some factors
Unserious customers: We have funny customers who keeps testing the website and have no real intention of buying.
Logistics: Having a logistic partner that knows how to approach customer and are swift in attempting delivery will really reduce return.
Our Solution
Trying to identify serious and unserious customers can be tricky, so we want to adjust POD (Payment on delivery) and we already make use of KOS as our Logistic partners as they have the better Technology and personnel.
Good day Ferdinand, i really love what you are doing in the e-commerce sector with Ferdicon.com… My question is what is your take on Pay-on-delivery in the ecommerce sector? and how is ferdicon.com confronting the issue -if there is-?
Pay-on-delivery will definitely become a story of the past, it’s just a function of time, many e-commerce businesses spends a lot of money Just to offer Pay-on-delivery to their customers and I believe people are getting used to buying & selling online, and also with the recent Increase in Fraud that is committed when Items are ordered using Pay-on-delivery option all this and more will make pay-on-delivery go away very soon. At Ferdicon, We’re also working towards adjusting our Pay-on-delivery options.
With the current unstable for foreign exchange how do you set your price so as not to sell at a loss. Do you hold the prices down or try to gain margin with dynamic pricing ?
How do you design a more attractive discount schedule for customer’s eye and not to lose a potential gain?
Aside Facebook, Adword and Blogs is there any other creative measure you implement to get traffic with good conversion rate?
Hi, In response to the issues around POD and COD we have a very interesting solution that would interest you.
We developed it in collaboration with MasterCard. It’s called REFOND- Release Funds ON Delivery. It’s a feature on our payment gateway that allows funds be blocked in a customer’s account at order, to be release at delivery via an authorization on the dispatch rider’s logistics app.
