What Is E-commerce?
E-commerce is simply the buying and selling of goods and services using technology. This digital business can take place either as business to business, business to consumer, consumer to consumer, consumer to business, etc.
Presently, if you want to go into e-commerce in Nigeria you should know the products that are trending to sell or what people need and want to buy always, it could be human hair, ladies’ bags or ladies’ shoes. Of course, ladies will always want to compete with themselves. In essence, you would need to carry out a market survey/breakdown to know the products that your potential customers would always want to buy online.
The thing with e-commerce is that if your customers come to ask for a product to buy and you don’t have it, you are literary shifting your customers elsewhere and before you would realize it you are out of customers and you will lose profit. In this article, I will be listing some of the details you will need to help you know how you can profit as an e-commerce dealer in Nigeria.
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Types Of Ecommerce Business
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Business–to–business -B2B
This is the buying and selling of products and services between businesses to business.
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Business–to–consumer -B2C
Business to consumer involves the selling of products and services from a business to the consumer. You should be aware of business-to-consumer business by now, it is the most well-known type of business when it comes to e-commerce in Nigeria.
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Consumer–to–consumer – C2C
Consumer to consumer is the type of e-commerce business in Nigeria that allows consumers to buy products and services straight from each other online. This is a third-party space type of business.
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Consumer–to–Business – C2B
In this type of business, you make the consumer’s product and services to be sold to the company or a person who provides service for a company online e.g freelancer, blogger, web designer, etc.
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Business–to–Administration – B2A
Business to administration is an e-commerce business that involves the company and government. Such businesses could be private firms rendering services to the public administration.
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Consumer–to–Administration C2A
Consumer to administration involves the marketing of a customer to public administration e.g health.
How To Start A Profitable Ecommerce Business In Nigeria
In this article, I have listed the various phases you would need to begin a profitable e-commerce business in Nigeria.
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Know The Best Influential Product
Nowadays, to start an e-commerce business and become profitable in an e-commerce business in Nigeria, you need to understand the product you want to sell. When you want to decide on this, you could have different things in mind such as what value would your product give to your customers? The world market demand, high edges, which could be a warehouse
Having these questions and answers, you have the resources to research the new and trending. As an e-commerce starter, you may not know how to spot trends to 100 but with time you will become an expert on trends. When you discover trending product opportunities ahead, there is a high possibility for you to turn them into a thriving e-commerce business.
The main rule of thumb is to select a network and product that you would do best, the reason is that you would be investing a lot of time, energy, and resources to put up your e-commerce website. The more serious you are, the simpler it will be to grow in e-commerce in Nigeria, this is how profitable the e-commerce business is.
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Hold A Supplier
If you have a good e-commerce insight and tons of website traffic and your supplier cannot maintain your demand, you are likely to kill your business slowly. In essence, communication is the key to every relationship as a human being and if you don’t have good communication skills, achieving profit in e-commerce in Nigeria will be almost impossible.
And if you want to contract an international supplier like Aliexpress then you have to communicate effectively to get your supplies. Again, get a list of the potential suppliers you want to partner with and ask them questions to know their strengths to supply. If the suppliers cannot answer your questions you should not partner with them.
Having lists of suppliers to partner with would be to your advantage and the amount should be put into consideration first and foremost. Like I said earlier, communication should be effective because it is what will keep your e-commerce running and one of the keys to how you can profit in e-commerce in Nigeria.
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Build Trust
E-commerce is now and still rising in the Nigerian business terrain, some people are still unaware, some are running businesses on it daily, some are trying to find their balance, some are concerned about the all-around dependability and safety of the personal information but whichever one you fall-in is all for the good purpose of it. How profitable e-commerce is in Nigeria has become the lead in reducing these concerns by building trust and a solid reputation for you.
You could attain these:
- Ensure the product displayed is the same as what will be delivered and authentic/original.
- Ensure that the due delivery date and time will be as accurate as possible.
- Manage an adjustable return and repayment system.
- Ensure the safety of customer items and personal data
- Ensure the use of friendly proofs like testimonials, reviews, and badges from previous customers.
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Create Payment Solutions
As an e-commerce business dealer and you want your customers to have a stress-free experience when patronizing your e-commerce store, understanding your customers is the key to customer retention and loyalty. Therefore buying and paying should be as free as possible.
Again, the one means to build this experience is to make different payment options available. Your customers are more likely to buy when you provide the right payment option. Also, note that the cash-on-delivery option is still very important in the country and should not be discontinued. Get validation and maintain regular calls for your customers to confirm the proof whether it can also be used to lessen forgery and false claims.
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Pick A Business Name To Maintain Your E-commerce Presence
Outside of finding out what you want to sell and who you want to supply to, picking your business name to maintain your e-commerce presence is another challenging decision as also picking a good accessible website domain name.
Of course, your business name needs to be only simple to know and appealing to your customers, but it also needs to have a domain name accessible and social media handles.
Therefore, it is good to go for the dot-com version anytime, maybe it might need you to pay a premium charge from a domain flipper. It is essential to have the dot-com ready and also accessible on all your social media spaces you want to use to promote the brand online.
Immediately this is verified, and the brand name is confirmed. You wouldn’t run into challenges picking your business name.
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Product Delivery And Logistics
Delivery of a product has been made smooth because you will not have to leave your house on, a rainy or sunny day. Logistics is necessary to carry out a successful e-commerce business in Nigeria.
You could get this done when you own a logistics though it could expensive for a starter, or you partner with a logistics company like Jumia, DHL, ABC, GIGL, and what have you.
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Create Your E-Commerce Business Website
For you to create an e-commerce store to enable you to profit in e-commerce in Nigeria, you must be aware that an e-commerce business website is very important to start an e-commerce business in Nigeria and anywhere in the world.
The reason is you need an e-commerce presence where your customers can do business with you; you may not be able to employ a web developer but you could start with a free WordPress site, then upgrade to a pro version as the business grows. Again, there are different spaces such as Shopify, and WooCommerce that will assist you to put up an e-commerce store from the spot with no web design skill which is not a bad start anyway.
In Nigeria today, Jumia, Konga, and Kara will give you the spaces to start your online store and with these spaces, you have access to promotions and other logistics that will lead you to be profitable in e-commerce in Nigeria.
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Setup A Marketing Plan
At this phase, you have a product and a website, the next phase is to find out how to reach your potential customer with your network. For you to begin producing sales instantly, you need to create a Facebook ads campaign that will Instagram. Influencer promotion is an effective means to lead e-commerce conversion.
It is a good thing to have your marketing plan include long-term features of digital marketing such as search engine optimization, but you need to direct your focus towards persuading sales right from the start for you to scale fast and produce revenue.
Make sure you track and measure everything course this will includes putting up your conversion pixels and events to understand the channels that lead the large conversion.
Plus the data you can track, the smooth it is to optimize your campaign, generate targeted ads and make a mindful decision which is how to profit in e-commerce in Nigeria.
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Use Of Multiple Channels
Using multiple channels are means to reach your potential customers I.e you should be using all spaces to attract, retain, persuade, drive sales and sell more to your customers.
Using multiple channel methods for catching up with your customers is sure to be more productive in gaining patronage for your e-commerce store. Certainly, shopping across multiple channels has been discovered to boost customers’ lifetime.
Therefore, it is truly necessary to keep away from the formal thought of just running an e-commerce store or website and overlooking the other alternatives to sell which is the means of how to profit in e-commerce in Nigeria.
Using multiple channels run from retail stores, websites, sales channels, business forums, and social media spaces. such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and even WhatsApp are all good to boost your eCommerce presence and energies. Although, it depends on what you sell.
Facebook and Instagram are good when it comes to the exhibition of products stylishly, while LinkedIn is for professional services and networking, and Twitter is for information and brand engagement for your profit in e-commerce in Nigeria.
List Of E-Commerce Businesses In Nigeria
- Perfume vendor
- Digital marketer
- Makeup artist
- Corporate event planner
- Fashion designer
- Designer handbags
- Food vendor
- Mini importation
- Baking and catering service
- Social media manager
- CV writer
- Public speaking coach
- Photography
- Investment advisor
- Relationship coach
- Business consultant
- Natural & organic beauty products
- Hair products, wigs
List Of E-Commerce Suppliers In Nigeria
See the list of popular e-commerce suppliers in Nigeria. You might need to visit their website to see what an eCommerce website looks like.
- Aliexpress
- Jumia Nigeria
- Konga
- Payporte
- Slot
- Kara
- Dealdey
- Supermart
- MyStore
- Taafoo
- Adiba
- Wakanow
- Connect
- Yudala
- Mobofree
- Kilimall
- GidiMall
- BuyRight
- Amazon
- Jiji
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Conclusion
E-commerce (the act of selling products) is unfolding daily, relatively in the in this present generation. The coming of e-commerce niches has opened up the selling field for entrepreneurs all over the world to begin e-commerce stores, sell products, and become profitable in Nigeria.
However, this article has given you an awareness of e-commerce networks, companies, and firms that will help you to grow and make a profit in e-commerce in Nigeria as quickly and smoothly as possible. These network markets will be worth exploring for you to know how profitable e-commerce in Nigeria is.
Use the e-commerce network referred to in this article to ensure profitability in your e-commerce journey. Building your own e-commerce business can be exciting and at the same time tiring for a beginner. It has a lot of learning paths that you would need to research that cross between learning trendy products, reviewing product feasibility, creating an e-commerce store, and discovering how to market and sell to your new customers.
This process would make you feel like solving an arithmetic equation but it is profitable at the same time if are determined and focused. Using these steps I hope you have gained awareness that will get you started to create your e-commerce business.
As often, the best advice you can get from a good person is just to get started, research the articles and every other means you need to profit in the e-commerce business in Nigeria and you would be on your wealth journey for life.
