PayPorte, an online platform that allows for e-commerce, bills payment, and money transfers, has disclosed plans to open more brake and mortar stores across Nigeria.
This development is coming at a time when the company just rebranded with focus on fashion.
Speaking during the launch of its new store in Lekki, Eyo Bassey, founder and CEO of PayPorte said the company is now a complete omni-channel business and this comes with a lot of costs because it has had to open brake and mortar stores across the country with Abuja, Ibadan, Port Harcourt opening very soon.
According to Bassey, PayPorte is entering into partnerships with key players in the country to provide it space, adding that going forward, people must be able to transact with PayPorte at every touch point.
“There is no difference between our physical stores and what you have online. If you buy a dress online and you have complains, you can come to its physical store and it will be addressed. We have invested a lot of money into technology to support this new omni-channel strategy.
“We have strategic partnership with top suppliers outside the country. Also, we have not only decided to stay online, we are also staying offline. We expect to open stores in Ghana and Kenya before the year runs out. The new website we launched is already programmed for Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, UK and US. Once we have customers come from any of these countries with currencies denominated in these countries, we will serve them. By fourth quarter of 2020, we would have physical footprints in at least 10 countries in Africa,” he explained.
Shedding light on its new omni-channel approach, he said, “We are bringing a complete omni-channel, which means we are doing online, offline, newspaper, TV; we have TV programmes where you can order directly from TV and we are also doing by post. That means if you have a newspaper, you can take out the coupon and take all what you want to order based on what you see in the newspaper and send it to us by post and we will deliver.”
He disclosed that it took courage for PayPorte to take this decision, stressing that the shift does not mean the organisation failed but that it has positioned itself to serve its customers better. “Amazon started by selling music and books and they grew to what they are today but we in Nigeria started by selling everything, without really mastering anything. So, this is recalibrating. We have been doing very well in fashion, so we are putting all our efforts in fashion and we will do it well.”
Bassey stressed that PayPorte is not selling fashion to everyone as it has mapped out its market for people between the ages of 16 and 35.
“Old women can’t come to Payporte except they want to look 16. If you want to look a certain way, you come to Payporte. However, the people we are going to sell to will be very happy. If you want to look trendy, come to Payporte. We produce a large chunk of what you see in our stores and we have built that capacity to be able to produce these fashion products,” he added.
