Challenges of e-commerce in Nigeria and solutions are things every e-commerce enthusiast and the regular Nigerian innovator should know. This is so they don’t enter into an industry blind and record great loss. E-commerce in Nigeria is fast rising, and the current trends of e-commerce call for existing companies and future organisations to be more creative with their approach and delivery. Customers face challenges of online shopping every day and the business must face the barriers of e-commerce and find solutions.
Though there are many advantages of e-commerce, here are some challenged of e-commerce in Nigeria and solutions.
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Finance
Finance is one challenge that cuts across all fields. The assumption some people have is that e-commerce operations should cost less because you may not need an office space and other office materials. You thought wrong, a lot of online businesses have actual physical offices because your staff will be housed. Asides the obvious, marketing, call time, material resources, human resources, data subscriptions, tool subscriptions down to domain and hosting, costs a whopping sum. Investors aren’t so easy to come by because it takes a few years to break even, and Nigerians struggle to believe in the online sphere.
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Hiring skilled staff
Digital media is just gaining ground in Nigeria. Many are still yet to grasp the wide scope of digital media; hence it is hard to find staff who will not need to learn the basics on the job. Some companies make the mistake of thinking that hiring regular writers and offline marketers will yield desired results. However, staff must be skilled in the field of digital media and marketing to fully utilise resources.
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Capturing quality leads
Capturing quality leads important to any online business. So much money is sunk into driving traffic, generating leads will only help the company yield their marketing efforts. A lead is a potential client, and a quality lead has the potential of being converted to sales. There are lead generation companies that specialise in lead generation. Building an email subscribers list is key for long-term success, is one lead generation technic that can be used. A lot of online business do not realise the power of leads, it is not all about getting social media influencers to talk about your business, or having fancy ads, there is a lot of backend work that goes into capturing these leads.
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Building online trust
Building online trust is one of the biggest challenges because Nigerians find it hard to trust things they cannot see and trust. Online marketing is the future of economic development as every day there are new avenues to do business. Trust says a lot about your online business’s reputation, you are not entitled to it, it must be earned. Building online trust goes beyond saying your business is legit, or having one or two people testify, trust is when customers no longer need recommendations from others before patronage. In a bid to build this online trust you must acknowledge that no two experiences will be the same, and there could be faults along the way. Customer trust can be gained by using authentic images. Don’t portray a product or service you’re not providing, enable reviews and testimonies, provide social proof and proper customer care, and content resources to help customers transact with your business.
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Choosing the right technology and partners
Some online businesses in Nigeria struggle with expansion or growth because their technologies are limiting. There are millions of innovative individuals however, the digital backwardness of the nation at large, not only hinders the innovator, but innovative expansion. Also, the lack of knowledge or incompetence of partners to handle a platform are also limiting factors. Hence, when running an and online business, be sure to choose the right technologies and partners for your business.
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Retaining customers
Retaining customer is another prominent challenge of E-commerce in Nigeria because other online business providing the same products or services spring up every day. Most times with a better offer and better conditions, therefore being the first or the next organisation to do it, you must provide something unique to your customer. The use of promotion tools should be encouraged in the company to achieve customer loyalty. Also, your business must move with the tide, upgrade your services when you can, and reduce cost, however, not at the expense of quality.
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Generating targeted traffic
Generating traffic is one of the sole aims of an online business. Digital marketing is now a thing, believe it or not, and you can no longer rely on one channel or avenue to drive traffic to your online business. You’d have to increase website traffic fast and this can be done by making effective use of SEO tools PPC, email, social, display ads, retargeting, mobile, google analytics, shopping engines, and affiliates. Your business must be visible to your target audience
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Product delivery
Tied with online trust is product delivery. It is the biggest fear of an online shopper in Nigeria. Knowing how fraudulent some platforms can be, product or service delivered may not be what you ordered, that is if it is ever delivered. At times it may not be the business, but the courier partner may be the problem. In Nigeria the issue of product delivery also spans across logistics, deliveries sometimes take too long, and tracking may be helpless because most online businesses do not offer that service. Nigerian customers also have to deal with rude personnel. The solution for this is still to choose the right partners and technologies for the services you can logically offer given a certain period and available resources.
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Quality control
Another challenge of e-commerce in Nigeria quality control. This is a challenge because some online businesses are service platform providers. That is to say, they provide a platform with various services to help a partner or registered business provide their services or product online. An online business of this form cannot entirely control the quality of products uploaded on the platform by subscribers to the platform. Therefore, bad services experienced by customers will be attributed to the company’s name. This can hurt the brand.
