The Electronic and Social commerce industry in Nigeria has seen tremendous growth in the last five years. Statistics in the public domain currently pins it down at a gigantic $37 Billion and it is projected to reach $46 Billion by 2025.
Post-covid has seen the world rethink and re-create buying and selling in a different way. We have now embraced speed, few touch points, convenience, tech-enablers, smart dispatch and of-course competitive pricing.
Little wonder more businesses are moving online. It does not matter if they retain their offline presence or not, their online presence remains as veritable. The internet simply opens a wider market and brings you closer to your target market. In Africa alone, this trend has birthed a massive 387M online buyers combing the internet for businesses to patronize. On a scale of 1 to 10, 6 times, end-to-end success is recorded.
These huge numbers of buyers are serviced by few vendors who are mostly owners of small businesses with online store-fronts on Instagram, Facebook and other platforms, staff strength is under 10, may not have an official address, maybe a home address. Some other vendors are a bit more established, have more than 10 staff, have an office and the business is likely registered with the authorities.
They also have a website or an ecommerce platform where products are listed and a checkout option is available but may be possible. These vendors on a daily basis put in a lot of work to sell their brands, products and services online despite all the limitations. At whatever stage they are, the whole idea is to convert shoppers to paying customers. As easy as this may sound, the banes are there, staring and taunting their efforts daily.
Top challenges these businesses face range from just being able to attract the perfect customers to offering great customer experiences, retention, price competition, finding the right tech partners, raising funds, trust issues, logistics and the list goes on. While many online businesses have hacked some temporal disentanglement for these issues, one major challenge that they all need to solve is that of logistics and fulfillment.
This is a pivotal aspect of their operations because it is the “moment of truth” of the entire effort. The “when” and “how” the customers receive the ordered items is a determinant of the survival of the business. It is the actual fulfillment of the order. Most vendors have had to bother so much on logistics that efforts at actually growing sales have dwindled. Vendors helplessly rely on roadside riders and transport workers who operate without any structure. Items are given to them with extra summoned courage that they will be delivered to the owners.
Criteria for timely delivery may also be how expensive the move is. There have been tales of how vendors have had to pay so much at the expense of their little margins, how riders have lost items in transit, how riders have stopped picking up calls, how riders have tampered with packages and so many other brand-damaging mishaps. Vendors may succeed at managing fulfillment for one order but mostly fail on a day with multiple orders.
It gets even worse when payments are not systemic. The challenges vendors face are inexhaustive. Consequently, their businesses start to plunge as the trust barrier continues to widen from inefficiency and trust issues.
E-commerce players are encouraged to play in a field where specialists handle the different roles. Instead of losing focus concentrating on logistics, vendors are best with partners who offer fulfillment services. Warehousing, picking, packing and last mile deliveries.
Some of these fulfillment operators even have insurance for goods in transit. For a fee, vendors can instantly achieve efficiency, better payment collection and reconciliation, gain customer trust, retention and increased sales as efforts will get channeled to making sales.
A fulfillment partner will bring ease, freedom, accountability, visibility and business growth to the vendor.
These days, some fulfillment operators have now gone a step further into financial partnerships with vendors.
Apart from the customers, fulfillment partners are a must-have for e-commerce businesses as they complement all the efforts put into customer acquisition and retention already in place.
Daniel Edeimu is the General Manager, Sendy Nigeria
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