Lagos, Nigeria (PANA) – Nigeria is ahead of South Africa, Kenya, Egypt and other African countries as the leading eCommerce destination on the continent.
According to the newspaper, the growth profile of Nigeria’s Internet users with eCommerce potential, put at about US$10 billion by the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC), was the main driving force for this growth.
The NCC had said: “Nigeria is home to about 74 million internet users, going by the November 2014 subscriber statistics.”
InternetStat, a platform that shows Internet World Usage Statistics for all countries and regions of the world, also confirmed that Nigeria still has the highest number of users, followed by Egypt, Morocco and Kenya.
It noted that the largest percentage of Internet subscribers are found in small economies such as Seychelles, where as much as 37% of the population has Internet access, while in South Africa this value is 11% and in Egypt 8%.
Another study conducted by Ipsos, a global market research company, on behalf of PayPal, showed an expectation by Nigerian consumers to conduct more shopping online.
Though Ipsos assumed there are over 50 million Internet users in Nigeria, it said that 65% of users already shop online and another 24% expect to do so in the future.
However, from a regional perspective, the study showed that Nigeria is without doubt a significant eCommerce nation leading in the amount of potential and existing online shoppers.
Nigeria has about 89% of online shoppers, compared to South Africa’s 70% and Kenya’s 60%.
In its study, Ipsos also discovered that intra-African trade was significant with 36% of Nigerian cross-border shoppers (those who have shopped online from another country) buying from elsewhere in Africa in the past 12 months, with South Africa being the main destination with 30% of Nigerian cross-border shoppers buying from the country in the past 12 months.
It is followed by Kenya with 2%, Egypt with 1%, and the rest of the continent with 3%.
The study noted that there are several key drivers that would fast track eCommerce adoption in Nigeria.
It disclosed that of the online shoppers surveyed, 53% of Nigerians who have shopped online in the past said faster delivery of goods would encourage them to shop online more often, 40% indicated that safer ways to pay was a key driver, and 31% indicated lower product costs as a driver to do more shopping online.
The research showed that security of online payments and delivery costs are among main concerns preventing consumers from conducting more online shopping.
Thirty one percent of those who have not shopped online gave concerns about security of payments as a reason for not currently shopping online, and 27% said that the cost of delivery is a reason for not currently shopping online.
Fear over security of online payments means that cash on delivery is still the most used and preferred payment method when shopping online.
Thirty nine per cent of online shoppers used cash and 32% indicating it is a preferred payment method for online purchases.
Photo: Wespotlight
