Nigeria has been ranked in the 2018 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Business-to-Consumer E-commerce Index ranked ecommerce uptake in Africa, and 75 globally.
Leading Africa packs include Mauritius coming first followed by South Africa third, Tunisia, Morocco and Ghana coming in that order.
According to the report Nigeria ranks second, largely thanks to a significant increase in postal reliability as measured by the Universal Postal Union (UPU). As Africa’s largest B2C e-commerce market (in terms of both number of shoppers and revenue), reliable delivery of products is critical.
However on individuals that owns an ecommerce account Nigeria
Globally, Netherlands took the lead having improved from fourth place in 2017.
The UNCTAD report further estimates that that the B2C e-commerce market in Africa was worth about $5.7 billion in 2017, which corresponds to less than 0.5 percent of GDP, far below the global average of over 4 percent.
However, the uptake of eCommerce in Africa has seen online shoppers surge at an annual rate of 18 percent, which is way above the global rate of 12 percent.
“There is no doubt that ecommerce is fast emerging as a new frontier in Africa and in the global market. As eCommerce continues to grow, retailers need to expand their distribution networks, build more fulfilment centres, and leverage more on third-party logistics (3PL) partners. At the same time, online retailers must place greater focus on conveniently locating their fulfilment centres close to their markets to facilitate faster deliveries.”
The report further stressed reliable and solid logistics and supply chain interventions are at the heart of successful ecommerce. This will ensure that the sector thrives and sufficiently satisfies customer demands for availability of goods purchased, timely, safe and secure deliveries exempt from breakages, bends or losses as well as favourable return policies.
On Nigerians online spending habit the report noted that payment still remains cash on delivery, followed by credit and debit card and mobile payment noting that the ecommerce sector is a new frontier in business that calls for close synergies between the ecommerce players and bac- end logistics to ensure a positive customer experience from that first click to eventual delivery.
One of the major challenges for retailers the report call for a solid and long-term partnership between logistics players and ecommerce partnerships which will ensure growth and expansion for both parties at the end of it all, the e-customer emerges the winner.
UNCTAD further called on e-retailers to ensure they build trust with their targeted consumers.
“Africa was worth about $ 5.7 billion in 2017, which corresponds to less than 0.5% of GDP, far below the world average of over 4%. hence the need to not only boost Internet penetration to grow e-commerce, but also existing Internet users to trust the online market for making purchases.
Unlike developed markets such as the European Union, where 68% of Internet users made an online purchase in 2017, the corresponding figure in Africa was only 13% on average in 2017.
“If the ratio of online shoppers to Internet users in the region was increased to 50%, an additional 77 million online shoppers would be added and the estimated B2C revenue (assuming average annual spend was halved) would more than double.
David Ibemere
