ELECTRONIC commerce (eCommerce) platform, OLX has claimed recording 65 per cent transaction growth within its three years of service in the country.
This is even as the company projects eCommerce to be the next economic frontier for Nigeria.
Speaking to journalists in Lagos, the Country Manager, OLX, Lola Masha, said the platform has greatly influenced meetings between buyers and sellers and allowed them sell different things, including cars, laptops, mobile phones and other accessories. She stressed that sellers have been able to use the money realised to buy new things.
Masha said the eCommerce phenomenon in Nigeria has been great, stressing that the growth has been positive.
On the reason behind the fast adoption of eCommerce in Nigeria, estimated to worth over $10 billion with about 300 sites, the OLX Country Manager said: “I think once Nigerians see value in any new technology, they tend to adopt it very fast. Just imagine the hold of mobile technology in Nigeria; it has been a great phenomenon. We are fast adopters of technology in this country. The current mobile growth is over 150 million subscribers and we are still growing. See the addiction to Facebook, Whatapp and other social media in Nigeria, it has been very high. What we find that if a technology is seen to have value, people adopt fast. When people get more confident about eCommerce and can adequately trust it, we see the platform grow faster and bigger.”
Masha said OLX will continue to champion growth strategy for eCommerce in the country, stressing that the last three years has been an exciting one for the platform.
“It has been an exciting time for us. We hoped to spread the initiative so that other people can join.
Today, we are the number one online classified in Nigeria. That was not the case when we started, but through hard work, which saw us focused on the users, customers and satisfying them, we have been able to grow very quickly. It has not been easy, but we intend to grow stronger. Our ambition for Nigeria is a huge one.
“We have grown our user base starting from January to now by over 65 per cent, which is phenomenon in nature. We have also seen that the rate of selling items on OLX has more than doubled in the last 12 months. We continued to see great traffic to our websites. You can either go to our website of download the app to access the platform.
Masha however, said the success story would not be complete if she failed to mention that OLX has also experienced some challenges.
According to her, the challenges are in two folds. “Nigeria is a country with huge potential, but lots of challenges as well. The poor broadband state in the country is a limitation. The goodness about this issue is that the country has also grown significantly in the last five years and penetration of Internet as at 2010 was a bit around 20 per cent and now we have doubled that, which has been greatly influenced by mobile subscription in the country. Even though the number is low, we can still do better. At OLX, we shall continue to work with relevant authorities and stakeholders (ISPs, among others) to support growth and penetration.
