Konga Foresees Better Future for e-commerce in Nigeria

Raheem Akingbolu

The Chief Executive Officer of Konga, Shola Adekoya, has predicted that the future of e-commerce is bright in Nigeria because of the country’s position as the largest population in Africa.

According to him, with the revelation that the 180m population would increase to 440m by 2050, with GDP expected to grow between 4.5 and 9 percent each year in between, coupled with increase in internet users, the e-commerce industry would attract more investment.

‘’With 38 percent of Nigerians now connected to the internet – a figure that’s on the rise fuelled by a growing middle class – our ecommerce industry clearly has potential,’’ he said

While attributing the growth in his company’s operation to huge Nigeria population and internet penetration, he spoke glowingly about how Konga kicked off in 2017 with a multi-million dollar investment from Naspers and Kinnevik and how the success recorded has helped him measure the performance of the entire industry.

He however admitted that reaping these online rewards isn’t straightforward and called on operators in the industry to be more creative and innovative.
“To encourage Nigerians to make more online transactions the ecommerce industry must find innovative solutions to the table stakes of online sales, such as fast and easy payments and refunds, and trouble-free deliveries and returns. Perhaps it’s the passion and commitment involved in bringing Nigeria’s strong trading culture online that makes our country an attractive proposition for investors.

When we started Konga in 2012, we knew we had to innovate to be successful. Today, I am proud of the progress we’ve made. We are a home grown Nigerian business, tailored to our local customers’ needs and committed to delivering the highest standards of service in the market. We’ve significantly grown our marketplace to service local seller and customer needs, and we’ve built much of our own nationwide delivery network from scratch, empowering 80 local franchisees in the process, as well as building a proprietary third party logistics and warehousing service. We’ve also launched Konga Pay, which has materially increased our prepaid orders and reduced friction in the payment process,”

Speaking further, he said there’s much still to do, especially as the market place model continues to evolve around local nuances, pointing out that at Konga, stakeholders have their eyes on the future with the confidence that things would be better.

He said: “Our latest round of investment from Naspers and Kinnevik follows their previous investments and underlines their ongoing commitment to our business and the Nigerian ecommerce market. It’s the perfect way to start our fifth year of business and we look forward to benefitting from their continued support and expertise. Of course, neither Naspers nor Kinnevik are strangers to Nigeria, having been long-term investors in the country via successful businesses like Naspers’ MultiChoice,”

Looking ahead, Adekoya stated that the ambition of his team is to bring millions more consumers online to shop for their everyday needs by providing a superior service that means and offers something to everyone.
He said the company’s latest double digit million-dollar investment from Naspers and Kinnevik would take the business to breakeven and allow the team to continue improving on Konga’s customer experience across all its offerings.

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