Gloo.ng, leading online supermarket in Nigeria, has secured a new 20,000 square feet Customer Fulfilment Centre (CFC) for improved market visibility and growth.
Gloo.ng, formerly known as BuyCommonThings.com, actually moved from its 5,000sqft CFC to the new one. Commenting on the development, Olumide Adedolapo Olusanya, founder and chief executive officer, who informed that the online retail store clocked a year in 2013 said that the expansion to a larger CFC became imperative due to the enormous growth witnessed by the firm since its commercial launch.
The firm is also anticipating further growth this year.
Olusanya said in the light of such growth, Gloo.ng needed to acquire more space for operations to guaranty sustenance of the legendary service the brand has become known and trusted for.
He further explained that the expansion was financed by well-meaning Nigerians—angel investors—who have bought into the vision of building Nigeria’s biggest supermarket (on the bank of technology) “—a vision of an indigenous supermarket brand with national roots but continental aspirations, into our mission of changing the way Nigerians shop for living essentials and into our purpose of rebuilding the modern Nigerian family—the bedrock of Nigeria’s future glory.”
According to him, a CFC is the technical electronic commerce (e-Commerce) term for a place where products are stored as well as where customers’ orders are processed and dispatched from, in order to fulfil the requests of customers for products being retailed online.
Olumide, who said the major driver of eCommerce in Nigeria, has largely been from the medium income bracket, however, noted that Gloo.ng’s service has a great appeal to the high income as well as the low income group.
“What has limited our extension to the crannies of low income areas has largely been funding.
“However, we expect to receive some institutional funding soon, which will be used to drive our service to these other income brackets,” he added. The biggest challenge to e-Commerce, according to the Gloo.ng’s founder, has largely been absence of a trusted and frictionless electronic means of making and receiving retail payments in Nigeria, stressing that the options presently available are not competitive in terms of price-performance.
While calling on government to support e-Commerce growth, through the provision of incentives to start-ups such as Gloo.ng, saying that this will enable e-Commerce to take root. He said e-Commerce represents one huge window of opportunity for the country to leapfrog into the future of formal retailing and further diversify its economic base away from oil to services.
In terms of Gloo.ng’s market share, Olumide said: “The brick-and-mortar player with the largest market share had 0.6 percent of the market in 2012.
We are aiming for a 1 percent market share in five years time and ultimately vaunt to a 15 percent-market share position in the long term. The entire market size in 2012 was $33.34billion but is growing at an annual clip of 5 percent.”
By: Ben Uzor Jr
