Nigeria’s e-commerce worth $10b – ACE founders

ITRealms

The electronic commerce (e-commerce) in Nigeria is estimated to yield over $10billion, about N1.99 trillion if the potentials are well harnessed, ITRealms reports.

This revelation was made by the Founders and Managing Directors of African Courier Express (ACE), a technology driven logistics company, Tunde Kehinde and Ercin Eksin. They added that robust logistics infrastructures are critical to unlocking the potential of electronic commerce in Nigeria.

The industry players who pioneered e-commerce in the country as co-founders of electronic retailer, Jumia.com, ITRealms gathered, said e-commerce should play significant roles in the economic boom, likely to come in the coming years.

They insisted that to attain the potentials belied in the industry, logistics as a challenge must be tackled. Just as they stressed the fact that with an estimated growth rate of 25 per cent yearly, the e-commerce industry, when examined in 2012 was worth $35 million about N6.95billion, is valued at $550 million aboutN109.4billion and projected to have a $10 billion potential if well harnessed, according to the ministry of communications technology.

“The Nigerian e-commerce market presents peculiar challenges,” the duo posited in a recent media chat.

For them, ITRealms gathered, Nigerians are not as trusting of electronic retail as westerners, and the implication is that almost e-retail transactions in the nation is pay-on-delivery.

“In Nigeria, this leads to logistics issues concerning finding customers at a time when customers have the cash for their purchases, and issues surrounding cash remittance to the merchant. These are the conditions that compelled us to create ACE, a firm that aims to redefine the way e-commerce is handled, by placing focus on creating a technological infrastructure and adapting processes that should allow Nigerian – and by extension African e-commerce to develop stronger,” they said.

In addition, they said ACE’s technology was developed in-house by talented, entrepreneurial minds, and allows the firm to provide merchants with more details and information about their shipments – enabling them to make better business decisions.

Cyriacus Nnaji/GEE

 
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