In the last decade, the ecommerce industry has been the main thing in the Nigerian entrepreneurship ecosystem, with entrepreneurs launching online stores and pumping millions of naira into the industry.
The ecommerce industry has raked in over $1 billion in the last decade, but entrepreneurs’ attention is gradually shifting away from it as big players such as Konga and Jumia struggle to survive, with many exiting the sector.
To address the high cost of logistics— one of the major challenges limiting the growth of the ecommerce industry in the country— Adeshina Adewumi established One Kiosk Africa to provide solutions using GPS and Artificial Intelligence.
Adeshina is a serial entrepreneur with over seven years’ experience in the Nigerian entrepreneurship ecosystem where he is actively engaged in operations, youth development, business processes and advisory.
He says the untapped potential in the ecommerce space inspired him to establish One Kiosk Africa in 2019 to change the status quo.
He notes that the industry has the potential to create about a million jobs within five years and has been projected to account for 10 percent of Africa’s GDP by 2025.
“One Kiosk Africa was launched out of the need to address three main issues. First are the challenges facing e-commerce business models ranging from high cost of logistics and poor turnaround time for delivery that have led to sudden deaths of many e-commerce businesses,” he says.
“Second is the non-existence of sound distribution network for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Africa, which is one of the major reasons why most small businesses close up. Last is the need to solve unemployment challenges in Africa,” the young entrepreneur adds.
The accountant- turned- entrepreneur built a model that connects customers with merchants using GPS and AI to provide a secure, credible and cost- effective platforms for MSMEs to distribute their offerings to a wider pool of customers within their neighbourhood or area of operations.
The model is also used to create employment opportunities within the value chains.
Adeshina’s initial capital was quite small. He bootstrapped the business with personal savings until Sterling Bank committed $3, 000 to the business through the Pitch Nigeria Programme.
Since then, the business has attracted local and international investors. The young entrepreneur is committed to growing the business further by developing its solutions before utilising external investors’ funds that have been obtained, he says.
The business, which was birthed 2018 and commenced operations in 2019, already has over 15,000 subscribers, users and merchants as well as six fulltime employees.
Speaking on why ecommerce businesses are closing shop in the country, Adeshina says that the model in operation in the industry has been ‘copy and paste’.
Jumia and Konga set the pace but their model were rather too expensive to sustain over time, he says.
To change the narrative, he explains, “Our model addresses most of the concerns that have killed ecommerce stores in time past, among which include poor turnaround time for delivery,” he explains.
He says his company delivers in 59 minutes and connect clients to the nearest merchant closest to them within a 1 to 2km radius, avoiding high associated logistics cost.
“The recent survey conducted by Ventures Africa shows that out of every 500 adults involved in the survey, 53 percent of those who have shopped online indicated that faster delivery of goods would encourage them to shop more often online. Forty percent indicated that safer ways to pay was a key driver while 31 percent indicated lower product costs as a driver to do more shopping online.
“These are the solutions we provide,” he adds.
He says that the business will continue to provide solutions that ecommerce businesses need in an innovative way while building capacity to scale quickly and grow to remain in business.
He notes that the ecommerce industry gave birth to most innovations the country currently has in the fintech industry.
He identifies infrastructural gaps as the main challenge facing his business as it continues to shoot up production cost.
He says that Andela and Proville are already addressing the technical skills gap in the industry while calling on the government to encourage them to do more. He also urges the government to start bridging the country’s huge infrastructure gaps.
He says the company plans to increase its subscriber base to a million within the next 12 months.
“For our merchants, we intend to have introduced workable offerings to increase their capacity to efficiently take charge of the delivery systems either by absorbing our One Pro-delivery members or building their own system.
“In five years, that’s by 2024, we expect to have grown to over 3.5 million users in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, South Africa and Egypt and created over 1 million direct and indirect jobs through our platform value chain.”
On advice to other young entrepreneurs, he says, “Consistency and patience. We live in a world where everyone wants to shine without paying the price required to shine. Consistency always pays off at the end of the day and patience is a rare virtue.”
Josephine Okojie
