Local e-portals brighten prospects of retailers in Balogun, Ariaria markets

Two new e-commerce websites are brightening the prospects of informal traders in Balogun Market in Lagos and Ariaria Market in Aba, Abia State. They are serving as link between informal traders in the two markets and polished consumers who prefer to buy online.
According to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), 93.2 million Nigerians currently have access to the internet via mobile devices with 30 percent of these Nigerians accessing the internet via smart phones, according to a report by Africa Infotech Consulting.
Launched in 2016, www.madeinaba.com.ng connects Ariaria Market traders with customers scattered across the West African sub region. It carries as part of it merchandise, Aba made leather bags, female and male traditional attires, leather boots, and other forms of footwear.
On the other hand, www.shopbalogunmarket.ng, also founded 2016, is connecting Balogun Market-based traders with customers and potential buyers in other parts of the country. It carries as its major merchandise, textiles, which the market is known for, male and female ready-to-wear clothes, and sewing accessories, among many others.
With the recent focus on growing revenue from locally made products to resuscitate the ailing economy, bringing the Made-In-Aba industry closer to consumers, in line with the advancements of technology and its penetration in the country was the main motive behind both platforms.
According to Sam Hart, special adviser to Abia State governor and chief co-ordinator of the Made-In-Aba project, the response within the first few months of inception has been enormous.
Within two to three weeks of its launch, the website had generated N250-N300 million from a single order of 50,000 pairs of Made-In-Aba leather boots by the Nigerian Army.
“We have delivered an order for 1,000 pairs of school shoes to public schools in Abia State, ordered and paid for by Abians in the US and they promised a repeat purchase this month,” Hart said, saying, ‘’Manufacturing companies are contacting us from Lagos to order for factory boots, fashion designers are engaging our merchants to mass produce for them.’’
Currently, the volume of commerce the site supports is pegged at about N400 million, according to the project co-ordinator.
Speaking on the growing trend of transactions moving online, Buchi Ejiogu, head of strategy at Equator Capital Limited, says, “The trend is sustainable.” It will continue because the marketplace is fast converging online, more and more people have access to mobile phones and computers, and people are becoming busier with work and business, he says.
The online portal that serves Balogun local traders carries products representing the Balogun Market – textiles, clothing and fashion accessories. Considered as one of the largest markets in West Africa, visitors and consumers are drawn to the affordable and yet wide range of product variety present in the market, often to a confusing extent.
But shopping at this popular market can be very demanding with its over 8,000 merchants who own at least one physical store. The human traffic and the miles of pathways you need to get through to mark off items on your shopping list can be nothing short of daunting.
For some merchants, the inside locations of their stores can render them invisible to potential buyers.
“Financial inclusion in Africa was our main agenda, using Balogun Market as a model market’’, says Olayinka Oluwakuse, the founder of www.shopbalogunmarket.ng in a published article.
The company declined to disclose the number of monthly visits to the site, or the volume of commerce it supports. However, in its ten months of operation, www.shopbalogunmarket.ng has been able to sign up over 3,000 merchants and has about 120,000 registered users on its chat platform, BuyChat, where buying transactions are negotiated and sealed.
Using the app, customers can contact brick and mortar stall merchants at the Balogun market, source for their desired items, haggle over prices and using the in-app payment option, SimplePay and logistic service, delivery.ng, pay and have their purchase delivered at a desired location.
This is divorced from the traditional e-commerce models employed by e-commerce majors, Jumia and Konga. ‘’While they do e-commerce, we do conversational commerce. There is a clear difference,” Oluwakuse says.

‘’We allow haggling and we enable traditional brick and mortar stores in city markets running into thousands. Conversational commerce, (a term that describes this new model of e-commerce), is the future.’’
The emerging idea of these platforms in transforming brick and mortar stores in 24 hour e-commerce sites have been met with challenges as agreed to by its founders and co-ordinators.
Logistics, wider coverage and total inclusion in the process for these merchants, still question the sustainability of these emerging models.
Nevertheless, the 97 million Nigerians already involved in the online space and who are already shopping online, with the use of mobile devices make a case for the translation of informal trading to the online space.
“In my opinion, what can hinder the growth of e-commerce in Nigeria is the slow pace of development in terms of infrastructure and high cost of broadband,’’ Oluwakuse says.