As more Nigerians turn to on-demand delivery services for personal and business needs, Bolt says understanding what can and cannot be sent through Bolt Send is essential to protecting customers, recipients and courier partners.

Bolt Send is designed specifically for package deliveries and is ideal for sending documents, clothing, small gifts, forgotten personal items and small business deliveries.

However, the company has observed instances where customers attempt to send items that fall outside the service’s terms and conditions, creating avoidable risks and delivery challenges.

According to Bolt, customers should not send items valued above ₦50,000, as packages delivered through Bolt Send are insured up to that amount.

The company also prohibits the transportation of illegal items, weapons, drugs, toxic substances, flammable materials, highly fragile goods and highly perishable items.

To ensure a smooth delivery experience, users are encouraged to properly package and seal items before pickup, ensure parcels weigh no more than 25kg, and have packages ready before a courier partner arrives. Accurate pickup and drop-off details should also be provided to avoid delays and delivery issues.

The company noted that by placing an order through Bolt Send, customers agree to the platform’s terms and conditions and share responsibility for ensuring that packages comply with the service guidelines.

“Most deliveries on Bolt Send are completed successfully every day. Following these simple guidelines helps create a safer experience for everyone involved while ensuring the service remains reliable for users who depend on it,” Teddy Appah-Dankyi, Bolt’s Senior General Manager, West Africa commented.

Bolt warned that misuse of the service may result in account restrictions, removal from the platform, or reports to relevant authorities where necessary.

The company encouraged customers to review Bolt Send guidelines before placing an order and to contact customer support if they are unsure whether an item is eligible for delivery.

With this acquisition, value not yet disclosed, Chowdeck is no longer just a delivery company. It is becoming an infrastructure provider for the food, retail, and hospitality businesses it serves.

Mira’s technology, a suite of POS tools that include inventory management, payment processing, invoicing, and financing options, will now be integrated directly into Chowdeck’s platform. 

This means that the same company that handles a vendor’s deliveries could soon manage its entire back-end operations.

Ted Oladele will take up a new role as Head of Product at Chowdeck. His co-founder, Ibojo, is stepping away from tech to take a career break after nearly a decade in the industry. Several other Mira employees will join Chowdeck’s team to build out the new business segment.

The acquisition comes at a time when Chowdeck is pursuing rapid growth. Since launching in 2021 with just 300 users, the company now claims over a million active users per month. 

Its delivery fleet has also grown to more than 10,000 riders across multiple Nigerian cities and Accra, Ghana, a market it entered recently and says it’s working to be the go-to platform far quicker than it did at home.

The last-mile delivery sector in Nigeria is facing challenges. Logistics firms face razor-thin margins, poor road networks, rising fuel prices, and consumers unwilling to pay more for faster service. 

Jumia Food, Bolt Food, Sendy, and Hytch have either exited or pivoted due to the hostile conditions. With investor appetite drying up, companies still in the race are being forced to rethink what they are and who they serve.

Chowdeck is doing just that. “For a long time, we’ve focused more on the customer side than on the restaurant, supermarket, and pharmacy side,” said CEO Femi Aluko. “But as we begin to expand, we’re paying deeper attention to the vendor side.”

With Mira, Chowdeck gains real-time visibility into in-store inventory and operations, a longstanding problem in the food delivery world. Customers often order items that are out of stock, leading to cancelled orders and frustration. 

Delivery platforms try to solve this by placing human agents in restaurants to manually track inventory, but it’s clumsy and inefficient.

Osarumen Osamuyi, founder of the research publication Subtext, said, “The challenge is that it’s difficult to solve this problem without having a monopoly on the market because the restaurants need to be able to sell on multiple aggregators.” He adds, “Being integrated with the inventory management system is a much more elegant way of doing that.”

By plugging directly into vendors’ inventory systems, Chowdeck eliminates guesswork. Fewer cancellations, faster delivery, better user experience and for vendors, more predictability.

But it’s not just about user satisfaction. The data Mira provides gives Chowdeck a clearer picture of how vendors run their businesses, what’s selling, what’s not, when cash flow dips. 

With that insight, Chowdeck can offer targeted financing or operational support, opening up a new revenue stream and strengthening vendor retention.

It’s a model that’s already been tested abroad. U.S.-based DoorDash acquired Bbot to expand into in-store dining systems. Square evolved from payments to become an all-in-one solution for SMEs, integrating e-commerce and lending. 

Chowdeck is borrowing a similar playbook and adapting it to Nigeria’s food retail sector.

This also puts Chowdeck on a collision course with fintech giants like Moniepoint, which recently acquired a POS startup to deepen its own play in retail. Competition will be fierce, and the stakes are high, bthe benefits could be transformative.

From the outside, it looks like Chowdeck is building a moat by embedding itself in the operations of the businesses it serves. This makes it harder for rivals to poach its vendors and gives Chowdeck control over a larger part of the value chain. It’s no longer just moving food, it’s powering the business behind the food.

Expanding into the fintech layer brings new regulatory checks. Scaling a POS business in Nigeria demands more support infrastructure, customer service, and technical capacity, all of which cost money. 

There’s also the question of team dynamics and integration. Samuel Frank, an analyst at Sahara Impact Ventures, warns: “Acquisitions can lead to higher operational costs, especially with staffing. It’s not always clear how teams will merge or how fast the value will materialise.”

The company already has a partnership with Chicken Republic and has experimented with loyalty programmes and discount subscriptions. It’s also working with cloud kitchens and virtual brands to increase profit margins.

The food delivery market in Nigeria is expected to hit $14.41 billion by the end of 2025. Urbanisation is speeding up, and demand for convenience is rising. If Chowdeck can combine speed, affordability, operational support, and in-store accuracy, it might take over.

With operating costs surging, delivery companies are left with the challenge of balancing price hikes while retaining price-sensitive customers. As businesses struggle to adapt, a number of logistics companies are beginning to adjust their pricing models.

Remedial Health, a health-tech startup supplying medications to pharmacies, has been among the first to respond to these economic changes. In an email to its customers, the company highlighted the necessity of revising its delivery processes due to costly fuel prices. 

Similar changes are occurring across the industry, with several logistics companies adjusting their rates or preparing to do so. Fez Delivery, for example, has announced a 23% price increase, with the cost of deliveries between 0 and 5kg rising from ₦2,500 to ₦3,075. This change, while essential for business survival, is a tough pill to swallow for both the company and its customers.

Seun Alley, CEO of Fez Delivery, acknowledged the difficulty in implementing these changes: “Our prices definitely have to change. But what we want to do is to ease our clients into that phase. At the moment, we are taking serious blows to keep operations running.”

The rising cost of logistics is squeezing last-mile delivery services, many of which operate on thin margins. However, navigating these changes is a delicate balancing act. 

On one hand, companies must raise prices to remain operational, while on the other, they risk losing customers who are highly sensitive to cost fluctuations. According to Seun Omotosho, COO of Gokada, customers often opt for cheaper delivery options when urgency isn’t a factor, adding another layer of complexity to pricing decisions.

For smaller businesses, the situation is even worse. Olawale, an online phone and gadgets vendor, described how he has shifted to using public transport to deliver his goods after delivery services like DHL increased their prices significantly—from ₦12,000 to ₦14,000 for phones, and for laptops, from ₦12,000 to ₦21,000. 

This sharp rise has pushed many entrepreneurs to explore alternative, cost-effective ways of ensuring their products reach customers.

In response to these pressures, some delivery companies are exploring incentives and discounts to retain their customer base. In offering riders bonuses based on the number of completed orders or providing discounts to frequent customers, companies aim to mitigate the impact of rising costs. 

Others are looking further ahead, with a focus on electric vehicles (EVs) as a prospective long-term solution to the fuel price dilemma. While the adoption of EVs in Nigeria may still be a few years away, companies are optimistic that they could help reduce operating costs and stabilise delivery pricing in the future.

The issue of fuel price increases has also prompted discussions about how businesses in Nigeria can innovate to remain viable in an increasingly challenging economic climate. 

Across various sectors, companies are experimenting with new strategies to absorb costs without losing customers. For example, some industries are leveraging digital platforms to simplify operations and reduce overhead costs, while others are shifting to more sustainable business models.

Similar challenges are being faced globally. In other African countries, last-mile delivery companies are dealing with rising costs due to fuel price hikes and inflation. In Kenya, for instance, logistics companies are looking into expanding their fleets with electric motorcycles to cut down on fuel expenses. 

The move towards electric vehicles is gaining traction in other regions too, as companies strive to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels and explore greener, more cost-effective alternatives.

Ultimately, the ability of Nigerian last-mile delivery companies to weather the storm will depend on their flexibility in adjusting to these economic issues. 

Whether through gradual price increases, customer incentives, or long-term investments in sustainable technologies, the industry will need to adapt if it hopes to remain competitive.