What about Tranex?
Tra wat!!! pls i would beg u to never use them, having used them for a year and ran away.
- Question: What is that something that needs to change?
If you’d ask me I’d say people shared your sentiments during the advent of online payments in Nigeria but that has improved by margins today.
I remember approx. 10 years ago when I used my card’s magnetic strips to make payments at eateries like Tantalizers, I knew next to no one who did that at the time (at those times you handled the POS machines yourself and hand them the receipt showing the amount you paid not now when they punch and hold for you to put PIN).
Nigeria is a country of almost 200 million folks, we’re all aware of the ridiculous value of trade that goes on physically. So there’s a market!
I believe paid advertising has a significant role to play in breaking the ice of trust and convert window shoppers into first time buyers and then regular customers.
Disclaimer: I’ve worked at an e-commerce company.
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Paid Advertising as its done currently by them is not sustainable, the Company forgets its a Startup whose job is to TRADE using TECHNOLOGY hence the attitude must be to engage users to trade with Konga better, the investors though thinking 25 yrs timeline need to see improvements and good cashflow now or they get scared and walk.
it doesnt make any proper sense to place over 40 billboards in Lagos alone with an Adcopy that u might have to slap the Marketing Department where on average a location of a billboard gulps 3 million naira upwards and there is ZERO impact because
- Its nt used with coupons to target how many eyes viewed this static or digital billboards to know conversion rate
- its nt geo-located to sync with areas that have been biggest cashflow( if for eg, dashboard says most highest buying cluster is Agege, it makes sense to drive campaigns around such area)
- it just isnt attractive.
The Company needs to have the hunger to drive growth.
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I beg to differ, you don’t sell to niches as small as those if you have a plan to be profitable. Plus how many ads/billboards have you seen in remote areas? You think they don’t consider these things?
You think they currently don’t?
There’s just no strong evidence…
Actually when you are selling any business in the cloud you better advertize like no tommorow. Your customers are distributed far and wide. Technology and call centers and on-line customer care are your replacement for actual physical people and physical locations.
Where e-commerce is suffering in Nigeria is controlling operational costs. The primary costs of offline retail is physical space, lighting and cooling and people to serve customers. In the online world your primary costs are delivery, delivery delivery. Imagine if Shoprite had to take out every single item a customer wanted to buy to them in their car in the parking lot. Thats what Konga is doing practically. Then they complicate matters by telling customers pay when I get it to you. Sorry but thats why they are bleeding red ink. They are being punished by the huge number of poor window shoppers in Nigeria.
Frankly Konga can be profitable pretty easily if they get control of their operational costs. Only do free delivery and pay on demand to people that have bought a minimum of 100,000 naira worth of goods already or whatever the threshold is with minimum returns. The rest should pay upfront and pay exactly what it costs to get the goods to them whether in Lekki Phase One or Ilah, Delta state. If you want to reduce delivery cost for markets outside Lagos then do bulk delivery to outlets in shopping malls and let customers go pick it up from there. Then you get rid of the “last-mile” cost of delivery of UPS, DHL and the rest and can calculate your margins.
Above all, Konga and Jumia should realize Nigeria is not the US where billions were pumped into the US delivery system by USPS, UPS, Fedex and the US government to make businesses like Amazon and other mail order services cost effective. In Nigeria delivery is expensive because we have thieves in govt that built little or nothing so it reduces the ability to scale.
But get delivery costs under control and you have a profitable business with e-commerce.
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Hey while i agree Operational cost is the way to go and you put some good ideas like Free delivery capped by a minimum order value, the major point we both agree on is that Nigerian customers have a very wierd buying behaviour, it boils down to price! price! price!.
Minus the ’ let me see what im buying’ syndrome the other ’ how much e cost’ syndrome strongly persist and very few pay upfront for goods online( you cant blame them, when someone orders for blender and is giving chopping board you wont trust online shopping) so how do we fix?
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Operational Excellence: From Order Quality to Delivery the experience and turnaround must be worth it, thats how u get brand ambassadors, referrals and more revenue.
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Offline to Online: Many Nigerians even those with smartphones, cards, data and understanding of shopping online PREFER to buy offline the best way is to get them shopping online, signing up with this stores they would normally walk into and providing deeper discounts.
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Logistics: I am afraid this Monster would need a super strong holistic approach starting with road infrastructure being fixed, our rail system functioning optimally( its 20% currently), reduced air cargo shipping fees, last mile technology and of course optimal fleet and 24/7 shipping options( The Bus companies dont count here), Security and Goods handling, but if the major guys throw in money to fix delivery they will scale, logistics is ever in demand.
In a not-too-unrelated read.
This level of seriousness is a requirement. Amazon would have had to innovate to this unreal levels of logistical management and measurement to match the unholy successes they’ve had so far if primary logistics haven’t seen such level of micro measurement and so as a result Amazon would now rather focus on drones and other new frontiers of delivery science.
UPS drivers will never turn left—and other drivers should consider doing the same.
If you follow a delivery truck along its route, you will see it avoid left turns. This isn’t some superstition involving packages and cross-traffic turns. It’s actually the result of a complex mathematical problem equation that has saved UPS millions of dollars.
Vehicle routing problems were developed in 1959 as a way to organize moving objects. Basically these types of problems take into account of variety of factors to determine the best way to get from point A to B.
One of these equations is working inside UPS trucks to help drivers find the best possible way to deliver their packages
Google maps this program is NOT.
The policy was announced back in 2004 and has since helped the company use 10 million gallons less fuel, emit 20,000 less tonnes of carbon dioxide and deliver 350,000 more packages. However some left turns are unavoidable. The company says that left turns make up less than 10 percent of all UPS truck turns.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/03/opinion/why-the-post-office-makes-america-great.html
Why the Post Office Makes America Great
I WAS transported recently to a place that is as enchanting to me as any winter wonderland: my local post office.
In line, I thought fondly of the year I came to this country from Turkey as an adult and discovered the magic of reliable mail service. Dependable infrastructure is magical not simply because it works, but also because it allows innovation to thrive, including much of the Internet-based economy that has grown in the past decade. You can’t have Amazon or eBay without a reliable way to get things to people’s homes…
Over the years, I’ve come to appreciate the link between infrastructure, innovation — and even ruthless competition. Much of our modern economy thrives here because you can order things online and expect them to be delivered. There are major private delivery services, too, but the United States Postal Service is often better equipped to make it to certain destinations. In fact, Internet sellers, and even private carriers, often use the U.S.P.S. as their delivery mechanism to addresses outside densely populated cities.
Almost every aspect of the most innovative parts of the United States, from cutting-edge medical research to its technology scene, thrives on publicly funded infrastructure. The post office is struggling these days, in some ways because of how much people rely on the web to do much of what they used to turn to the post office for. But the Internet is a testament to infrastructure, too: It exists partly because the National Science Foundation funded much of the research that makes it possible. Even some of the Internet’s biggest companies, like Google, got a start from N.S.F.-funded research.
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Hahaha!
Having worked at one, I can only laugh at a statement asserting that e-commerce companies don’t have the hunger to drive growth.
You think their funding drops on their laps each round?
pulls curtains
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This is a stat of Kagawa. Don’t mind these people
I’m just here observing.
Hi, Is your number 2 point based on data? If yes, can you point me to it or can we run a poll here and see how many people PREFER to shop offline.
I prefer to shop online atleast for clothing and accessories, makeup and the likes . I miss the days of Asos and co shopping ( cries in economic recession ) . It’s stressful to shop for clothes offline in Nigeria. It’s either you visit multiple stores and still not find what you’re looking for or you dive into the local market 
. Sometimes, I end up buying off those that sell on IG (That’s kind of online right?)
So I’m not sure about your number 2 point but then again, I don’t have the data that’s why I’m asking if you do.
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The people here on radar are not a true representation of the Nigerian market.
It’s alarming how a lot of people keep missing this.
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Trust.
Trust in the Nigerian system (putting card details online).
I don’t trust that I’ll always get quality products online.
I don’t trust that I’ll be protected if my order gets mixed up or lost in transit.
I don’t trust that I can return goods and be refunded or replaced promptly.
I don’t trust the merchants (flimsy verification).
Horrible communication between these sites and customers.
Cost of logistics/ease of transportation of goods. (Always either road or air).
Difficult customer address or ways to contact customer affects Merchant’s services.
They do not have Ebay’s Buyer Protection that is replicated by nearly all e-commerce sites abroad.
They jumped into e-commerce and replicated Amazon/Ebay without researching or trying to change Nigrerian buyer mentality.
No REAL discounts for buying online.
Serious competition from those selling same products offline who are easily accessible to customer.
Strong bargain mentality. Prefer to buy where prices can be beat down.
I studied e-commerce law in the UK.
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Hey M.O.O … I definitely understand that they aren’t and you missed my point 
. I was just pointing to a random sample based on the attributes he mentioned “…those with smartphones, cards, data and understanding of shopping online” . That aside, the main point of my post was actually a question- Is there data to show many Nigerians in the said category would prefer to buy offline?
Err… you can check Phillips Consulting or paid stats from Euromonitor to access offline and online data or wait for Quarterly NBS Reports on Household Expenditure.
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I agree with you 
. At Light inBottle, that’s what we’ve been working on recently… Building a standard delivery network that will serve OrderYourFoods and SharpGuys and at the same time allow us to enter the e-commerce market with SimplerPut. Konga should do well and focus on having a fast delivery network at least a 24hrs service. I will love to order an item from Lagos while I’m at kebbi and get it in 24-48hrs. Damn! That’s fast. And if its not what I ordered, I can be able to return and be refunded within same time. Nigerians love convenience.