A growing number of Nigerians are becoming more aware and actively utilizing e-commerce in Nigeria according to a new survey conducted by NOIPolls Limited in partnership with BusinessDay Media.
The survey revealed that s much as 5 in 10 Nigerians, about 53 percent, showed awareness of online shopping, and of this proportion, 25 percent further indicated that they shop online or know someone who does.
“These findings suggest that while online shopping only started gaining popularity in Nigeria in recent years due to the springing up of indigenous online shopping sites, its awareness and usage is relatively encouraging. This arguably could be linked to the rising usage of the internet by Nigerians, further buttressed by the social media survey conducted by NOIPolls in February 2016 which revealed that 63 percent of Nigerians are on one form of social media platform, or the other accessing the internet mostly through their mobile phones and other internet enabled devices,” read a statement from NOIPolls.
The poll also disclosed that Jumia has the most market share in terms of popularity among the platforms surveyed. While 68 percent of respondents are aware of Jumia and 58 percent said they use the online platform more. Konga follows behind with 59 percent popularity and 30 percent usage. Other sites with significant popularity are OLX (18 percent) and Kaymu (7 percent).
“It is important to note that the indigenous online shopping sites such as Jumia, Konga, etc, which have sprung up in the last few years seemed to have gained more popularity and usage than foreign online shopping sites such as Amazon, Aliexpress etc. This may likely be due to factors such as proximity, currency of dealing, delivery and terms of payment of the both categories of sites in view. For instance while the indigenous sites offer services like payment on delivery (heightening the assurance of customers), foreign sites do not offer this service as payment need to be done before delivery,” said NOIPolls.
Top on the list of factors that influence the decision to shop online for most Nigerians are ‘convenience’ (46 percent), ‘quality’ (16 percent), ‘variety of products’ (10 percent) ‘delivery time’ (6 percent).
61 percent of the respondents who shop online regularly said they were satisfied with their online retail shopping experience. However a considerable proportion of respondents in the category affirmed in the negative.
“This is no surprise given that the satisfaction level of consumers is bound to differ due to several online shopping platforms available in the country and the varying expectations of individual consumers from these platforms,” said NOIPolls.
It is estimated that there are over 70 online retailers in Nigeria providing services and products ranging from household items, electrical appliances, office gadgets, cars, health and beauty products, sports accessories and even fairly used items.
Different reasons are adduced for the spike of online shops in Nigeria. These include increase rate of internet penetration in the country, innovative apps that enable mobile internet usage as well as the introduction of internet banking.
“Although buying and selling still takes place at open air-markets in both urban and rural areas in Nigeria, people are increasingly patronizing online shops and platforms,” noted NOIPolls.
The survey generated responses via telephone using five major languages from a total of 1000 respondents from different regions of the country. The five major languages include Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, English and Pidgin. To ascertain accuracy, NOIPolls employed a proportionate, stratified random sampling design to select respondents’ representative of all geopolitical zones to be interviewed.
FRANK ELEANYA
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