THE FAILINGS OF ONLINE BUSINESSES IN NIGERIA

The period 2010 can, perhaps, be regarded as the dawn of online businesses in Nigeria. Online businesses, also termed e-businesses, can be defined as any kind of business activity that occurs over the internet. A business owner who does any, or all, of their businesses using the internet, is said to be running an online business. An online business or e-business can be e-commerce but not vice-versa. This is because e-commerce is purely about buying and selling goods and services online whereas e-business has the added feature of combining traditional or offline activities to its online activity.

The coming of these types of business has shaped the way the average Nigerian carries out his/her day to day transactions as they have succeeded in making life much easier. So, if you need to buy a phone or any electronic, you can get it from stores like: jumia.com.ng, konga.com or slot.ng. When you need to rent an apartment, you could check a privateproperty.com.ng, tolet.com.ng, lamudi.com.ng etc. And when it is time to buy or sell that car, look to places like cheki.com.ng, carmudi.com.ng and, even, when you feel like selling off anything you do not need, we have olx.com.ng, efritin.com, jiji.ng and so on…….

No doubt, these businesses have made life better but they equally have caused frustration and pain as well.

WHY THE FRUSTRATION?

1. Bad User Experience

Nothing hurts more than to have an offline experience - you dread - online. Let me share my experience. I was house-hunting some time ago and spotted some apartments of interest on the website and then I proceeded to contact the agent. I was told to that an agent would be assigned to me and I was to pay an agent fee of #1,500. But after my meeting with the agent, I met my worst fear:

*    4 out of 5 apartments, that I was interested in, were already taken (yet those apartments still show on their website till this day) and

*    I get to pay this same fee to another agent, who is covering another zone, outside the initial zone of my interest. You can imagine how many agents I would have to pay for this service. At the end, I didn’t get any property and there was no follow-up after I made payment.

2. Online and Offline Messages – ‘Not In Sync’

The impression online businesses give is ‘producing a conducive environment and offering comfort to visitors’ since you can perform any buying/selling activity from your phone or laptop; at home or from the office. However, in reality, some of these companies have a different message ‘offline’. It usually has that experience people were already familiar with, even before the advent of online businesses. Imagine ordering for a washing machine to be delivered to you in Lagos. Now, the site states “product will be delivered within 3 to 8 days” but at the end

*    the product is not delivered within that time frame and with no reasonable reason for the delay

*    the product you saw on the site is not what is actually delivered (misleading images)

*    wrong product description which misleads visitors or prevents them from making the right choices due to incomplete or no product description.

*    Missing product parts etc

At the end it tends to kill any form of gain from online shopping and equally strengthens the fears and doubts of people who are not yet comfortable with shopping online.

3. Not getting involved in the Buying-Selling process

Simply being a ‘go between’ is not enough as buyers still get to be at the mercy of the sellers in some of these businesses. Just like my experience in (1) above, it all happened because their main concern was to get leads for the agents who subscribed to their platform. However, if businesses were to be more involved in this process, then there would be happier and more satisfied users/visitors and a better user experience.

No doubt, online businesses have come to stay in Nigeria just like GSM. Notwithstanding, these companies would need to do more to improve user experience, gain more public trust (since a large portion of the population still have fears and doubts when it comes to online businesses). To achieve this, such companies need to ensure: quality control (ensuring that ads actually exist in reality); give up-to-date product description on all their products; ensure that they live up to their statement of providing a conducive way to shop for items; work on timely and complete (no missing parts) delivery of products among other things. This is the only way they can stand without being swept away by competition.