Adewale Opaleye, the CEO of Alerzo, a B2B e-commerce firm based in Ibadan recently disclosed that more and more logistics companies are setting a new standard with their reputation and free delivery services by leveraging technology, especially smartphones and the Internet of Things (IoT) to help retailers of fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) shop with ease.
According to him, these B2B businesses help retailers get goods from the manufacturers at the accredited suppliers’ price and get the same delivered to the last mile for free. “On top of that, what we need in this space is building trust. Right now in this space, we are the only company that delivers within four hours; retailers get their products delivered to them within four hours depending on when they order for products,” Opaleye stated.
Speaking further on the B2B business ecosystem, he said trust is an integral part of building a strong customer base. Accordingly, he said trust is essential in building reputation over a short or long period of time particularly for e-commerce firms that are dealing with microbusiness owners.
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“We own our infrastructure, which is actually important because you don’t solve a problem by being a third party in space. Right now we built our own logistics routing software that allows our drivers to walk around retail stores pretty quickly,” Opaleye stated.
On leveraging technology to help retailers run their businesses better, he said e-commerce needs smartphones and the internet to function. According to him, smartphones are becoming more accessible to the people.
“E-commerce spending in Nigeria is worth about $12billion and is forecast to hit $75 billion by 2025. Even before we started to talk about e-commerce, commerce already existed. Everyone was already buying and selling,” Opaleye disclosed.
