Local shopping websites in Nigeria and how they work
Naijaholic
Home | Shopping | ( 1 ) | Subscribe
For many years Nigerians have just been used to seeing products online but have never been able to actually buy them. All they could do is window shop and not because they lack money or anything but simply due to many little factors that restricted them or made it impossible for them to buy anything online e.g Credit cards and shipping were among those factors that really made it difficult for anyone living in Nigeria to be able to do online purchasing. The only way they could manage online buying is through buying products from other countries e.g US but then this proved to be uneconomical because the shipping prices of the products that one was to buy would make the whole process expensive and may be subject to delays. However, right now things have changed. Online shopping websites are all over Nigeria and offer you the products you want at very reasonable prices. They even go further to let you pay in Naira and they can also deliver these products right on your doorstep or you can decide to go and pick them up yourself. These products they are offering are very similar to those you see in other foreign shopping websites, Nigerian websites have just decided to bring them closer to home and offer them at a very cheaper price compared to the price in foreign websites. They have mainly achieved to make them cheaper through cutting down on shipping costs as they use sea freight instead of courier services and also because they buy them on wholesale from foreign companies. When buying these products there is no need of paying through PayPal or credits anymore, you just order the products and they allow you t make the payments after delivery. Some of the main shopping websites found in Nigeria are well listed below; 1. Jumia Nigeria: A popular online shopping destination in Nigeria is Jumia Nigeria and they have a website found in jumia.com.ng. They have their offices located in several parts of the country e.g in Lekki and Lagos. They allow people to register for free, then look for products they may want, order them and they will even deliver them to you then you can pay once this delivery is done. They usually have a minimum amount upon which if you buy products above that amount then they will do the delivery for free but if you are unable to buy past that minimum then they will just charge you some certain little fee. Jumia Nigeria also has the highest number of products for sale in their website, some of these products include wines, mobile phones, tickets, home accessories, electronics, books, fashion and computers among many more. Therefore Jumia is most definitely a website where you can order your products and you are guaranteed that it will be well delivered in time to you. Jumia has around 104,000 content pages that are indexed by Google as at September 2014.2. Konga: This is Jumia's biggest competitor when it comes to online shopping. Their website is found at Konga.com, they do not have any office address but have three different addresses from where people can pick up their products from. These addresses are found in Victoria Island, Ikeja and Surulere. Konga also has delivery services just like Jumia and they usually deliver products around most cities all over Nigeria. They offer many general products in their websites such as foods, drinks, books, home accessories, computers, clothing and mobile phones among other products. As of September 2014, they had approximately 152,000 content pages already indexed by Google. 3. DealDey: Their website is found at DealDey.com and they also have offices located in Ikoyi Lagos. DealDey is quite a different selling website from any other because it generally focuses on selling services and/or products on wholesale only. They offer services and products to a group of buyers and that is the reason why they have been able to offer their services at cheap prices. Therefore the one advantage this website has over the others is that people are able to capitalize on group buying and hence get the services and products they may need, at very cheap prices. They offer shoes clothes, and home accessories among other things and as of September 2014 they have over 14,000 content pages that are indexed by Google.4. MyStore: Their website is found at mystore.com.ng while their offices are situated at Idimu-Egbeda Road in Lagos. They also offer products quite similar to the many other offered by other websites e.g home accessories, mobile phones and other electronics. MyStore offers quite a number of different means of paying for the products, they allow cards, gift cards or cash when once they deliver the products to you. They also have an offer where they deliver products for free but for only buyers who are found within Lagos but also deliver the products to other buyers in other parts of the country. As of today the website had almost 6,360 content pages indexed by Google.5. HelloFood: Online shopping does not just allow you to shop for electronics and clothes online, they also give you an opportunity to buy food online. Whether it is the traditional Nigerian foods like Jollof rice, Fufu, Ofe Akwu or the other foreign dishes such pizza spaghetti or cake, all of them can be found here. You make the order of your food online and the guarantee you to deliver it within the day while it is still fresh, they manage to do this because they have chain of restaurants spread all over the country. You just have to create an account with them which is free to create then from the menu that they usually display you pick the food you want order it and they will deliver it to you then you can pay them from there. It is that simple. Hellofood delivers food same day and it's main competitors are Citychops.com and Easyappetite.com..
5. Gloo: This may be a relatively new kid on the block but it's growing strong and fast too. It prides itself at the biggest online Supermarket in Nigeria In case you dont' really understand what they are into, well you can simply compare them to that supermarket in your locality but in this case they exist in cyberspace. Gloo has an online platform located at gloo.ng and they allow Nigeriasn to buy about the same things they can get from their normal supermarket or local stores. They deal in retailing products like packaged food and drinks, home appliances, baby stuff, drugs, books, office supplies and so on. Yes, they deal with those things you arre likely to buy and do need regularly like noodles, milk, eggs, frozen meat and so on. What I love about them is that they have a wide variety of stuff and they tend to offer really low prices too. Before you go out again to buy that stuff at your local supermarket, you should first check out that stuff at this website and see if they have a better offer that what you are getting.
Those are just some of the many shopping websites found in Nigeria, there are many other small website that also offer similar services such as Kara.com.ng, Taafoo, Kaymu Nigeria, Sunglasses.com.ng, EasyAppetite.com and the list goes on. These shopping websites are simple and almost similar to one another, they just require you to open an account with them which is done at no charges, then from there you can be able to access all their products, order them then they will deliver it to you if you chose that or you can go to pick them and finally pay for the product upon delivery or after you have picked it.How these shopping websites work
An online shopper visits them for the first time and makes a normal registration which would require him providing details like an email address, phone number and address. He/she may also easily sign up using their Facebook accounts.On subsequent visits, the person can simply log into his account and then browse through the products listed on the website before making a buy decision. He will be able to choose the items he wants to buy by adding them to his cart just like a regular shopper does at a shopping mall. After items have been picked and added to the cart, the next step is to checkout and this involves going to the cashier which in this case is the payment platform. The Nigerian shopper can choose to make an immediate payment or pay on delivery. He can also choose to pay using a bank transfer, deposit, e-wallet or debit/card payment. It seems however that most Nigerians prefer the pay on delivery option since it's mostly a cash based economy and online shopping websites are still relatively new and may take up to 10 more years before they are fully trusted.After the payment has been decided, the merchant then first confirms the order by making a phone call to the registered number for the shopper before sending couriers to make a delivery to the buyer. Some online shopping platforms also allow
buyers to do a pickup themselves if they chose to and in most cases, that can save them from paying delivery charges.Conclusion
Shopping has therefore been made much easier by these online shopping websites in Nigeria. People no longer have to continue window shopping or patronizing foreign websites anymore but instead go local by patronizing the mentioned websites. Chances are that they will be more than impressed by the services they can offer you.
Posted by Felix Okoli on Thursday September 18, 2014 at 11:17:29:
Comments:
Re: Local shopping websites in Nigeria and how they work Reply by Thorkel Rostad on Thursday April 23, 2015 at 13:46:19: I have found a website www.blessingcomputers.com , a very good website for online shopping of electronics item.
An online shopper visits them for the first time and makes a normal registration which would require him providing details like an email address, phone number and address. He/she may also easily sign up using their Facebook accounts.On subsequent visits, the person can simply log into his account and then browse through the products listed on the website before making a buy decision. He will be able to choose the items he wants to buy by adding them to his cart just like a regular shopper does at a shopping mall. After items have been picked and added to the cart, the next step is to checkout and this involves going to the cashier which in this case is the payment platform. The Nigerian shopper can choose to make an immediate payment or pay on delivery. He can also choose to pay using a bank transfer, deposit, e-wallet or debit/card payment. It seems however that most Nigerians prefer the pay on delivery option since it's mostly a cash based economy and online shopping websites are still relatively new and may take up to 10 more years before they are fully trusted.After the payment has been decided, the merchant then first confirms the order by making a phone call to the registered number for the shopper before sending couriers to make a delivery to the buyer. Some online shopping platforms also allow
buyers to do a pickup themselves if they chose to and in most cases, that can save them from paying delivery charges.Conclusion
Shopping has therefore been made much easier by these online shopping websites in Nigeria. People no longer have to continue window shopping or patronizing foreign websites anymore but instead go local by patronizing the mentioned websites. Chances are that they will be more than impressed by the services they can offer you.
Posted by Felix Okoli on Thursday September 18, 2014 at 11:17:29:
Comments:
Re: Local shopping websites in Nigeria and how they work Reply by Thorkel Rostad on Thursday April 23, 2015 at 13:46:19: I have found a website www.blessingcomputers.com , a very good website for online shopping of electronics item.