Mila Nigeria (www.mila.com.ng)

by

Olamide Agunkejoye | Aug 1, 2020 | in Digital change-maker challenge | ICT applications

Define three specific objectives that you would like to achieve with your proposal.

1. Gain Financing

2. Gain Mentorship

3. Gain Publicity

What problems (particularly in value chain competitiveness and global disruption) are your community’s stakeholders facing due to the Covid-19 pandemic?

There are still so many semi retail shops in Nigeria that dont sell their wares online and only offer physical sales, particularly in states outside of Lagos , Abuja and Portharcourt. Digitizing the process of online commerce is still way behind. 

Given the Pandemic, one thing has been established: an online version of every physical commercial structure has become inevitable and especially now, resulting in a surge in online purchasing activities.

Dellyman, an online marketplace for logistics companies established in March last year, disclosed that active customers on its platform grew by 91%, from 830 in January to 1586 in April.

PricePally, another new entrant for online groceries, which launched in November 2019, reported a 213% growth, from 320 paying users before the pandemic to more than a thousand in the first week of this month.

A June survey by Visa, the financial services company, showed that 71% of the consumers they interviewed (amongst the banked population) in Nigeria, shopped online for the first time as a result of the pandemic.

The prevalent ecommerce structure in the country (including all listed and those not listed above) is just a direct replication of those from other countries and other economies. Given our economic and cultural perculiarities, these structures are find it hard to become profitable, and usually dont stand the test of time.

Konga.com, six years after its establishment as one of Nigeria’s most prominent e-commerce businesses, was reportedly acquired in 2018 for $1 (note that this figure has not been officially confirmed and the cash consideration may not reflect the nature of the deal structure).

This year, Jumia.com lost its original investor, Rocket Internet, which sold its 11% stake. This action followed Jumia’s release of its 2019 report, where its fulfilment expenses (handling orders from packaging to shipping of goods) ate into its overall performance. 

Here in Mila Nigeria, we believe that ecommerce in nigeria, has not been inclusive of physical shops in other states apart from Lagos, instead we seem to have gone ahead to create a new set of online retailers who dont have physical shops.

What minimum viable solution(s) are you proposing to address the challenge(s) in your community?

We have created an online facility: www.mila.com.ng

Backed by an inclusive business structure.

We have uploaders who are tasked with the responsibility of signing up,  uploading and updating products/items that exist in physical shops that are signed up with us, as well as a ready delivery plan waiting for kick off.

Our business model makes prompt delivery possible, since we have successfully divided the market into small reachable sections.

It is our aim that at the end of 2020, we will be helping 80-90% of semi retail shops in the State (Edo - Nigeria) sell to their customers online, after which we intend to replicate same business model in others states of the Country.

Share your story (your narrative)

Every idea starts with a problem. Ours was simple: Neighbourhood Physical Shops dont exist online.

I live in Benin with my Wife and Son. One day while I was off to work, my wife all-of-a-sudden found out that she was out of baby diapers.

She called and asked if there was a way she could order online and have someone deliver it to her within the hour. I searched online and called friends, I was shocked to know that of all the nice retail shops in the state, there was no way to order online and get it even in 72hrs. Sadly, my friends all had same complains.

Here in Nigeria, most vendors in major online shops are either people without shops who import their goods from china, or are far away in Lagos. This situation creates a lot of problem e.g. Delivery takes ages, Delivery costs implicitly are higher, fake/damaged/different products from what was ordered

So we decided to Create Mila Nigeria, with very clear objectives: 

Digitise local shops and make them available for online commerce

Deliver within 24hours

No processed pictures, our uploaders snap and upload products as they are physically.

Please provide any additional relevant information that you would like to share.

The Ecommerce Market is so Large that banks and Payment platforms in Nigeria are beginning to get into ecommerce: 

Since the start of the year, four of the country’s biggest payments services have increased their focus on e-commerce. Between February and April, Remita, Flutterwave and OPay each launched e-commerce platforms.

Guarantee Trust Bank (GT Bank), one of Nigeria’s most profitable banks, made the first move. A few years ago, the bank developed Habari, a superapp that provides everything from streaming to e-commerce.

In 2019, Jumia’s co-founder and co-chief executive spoke with the Financial Times about how the growing smartphone usage in Africa —predicted to reach 690 million smartphone users by 2025.

This projection has obviously been double performed if not tripled, given the outbreak.

In 2013, Nigeria had a consumer market of $400 billion, said a McKinsey report. The industry was growing at 13.3% yearly and, according to Deloitte, the middle class was responsible for this growth. By 2030, the consumer market was predicted to grow to $1.4 trillion

More people are comfortable and feel safer with online payment today than five years ago. Old worries of fraud are decreasing and more people are using digital payments options to complete transactions.

Over the last four years, the value of online payments using mobile apps has jumped from ₦12.1 billion ($31.5 million) in January 2017 to ₦133.2 billion ($347.2 million) in January 2020. More growth is possible as Nigeria’s internet population continues to grow. There are over 120 million internet subscribers in the country, up from 20 million a decade ago.

The Pandemic has proven that its only a matter of time, every commercial structure that exists offline will have to also exist online. 

Ecommerce is still at a very young stage in Nigeria, and we intend to become the number 1 go-to online solution for semi-retail online commerce