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The Nigerian eCommerce (online shopping) spending is estimated at $12 billion and this is expected to exponentially increase by 2025 to about $75 billion, according to International Trade Administration analysis.
Shopping online in Nigeria is done via social media and websites. WhatsApp, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter are some of the most popular social media platforms in Nigeria.
Nigerians according to a 2020 survey spend more time on social media than most Western countries like the United States and United Kingdom. In fact, the nation is second only to the Philippines who spend most time on social media across the world.
Nigerians spend on average 3 hours 42 minutes on social media. Only 8 minutes behind the Phillipines. This according to some analysts is as a result of the high unemployment rate. In 2020, Nigeria’s unemployment rate reported by the National Bureau of Statistics was 27 per cent.
In spite of the high duration of time spent on social platforms by Nigerians, many of them remain skeptical about making online purchases via these platforms.
This was revealed in a survey conducted on Twitter with 390 respondents. Of the internet users who responded to the poll, 64.4 per cent claimed they trust shopping on websites like Jeugmark than social media platforms like Instagram. While 21 per cent said they are most comfortable shopping on social media platforms.
The reason why many Nigerians are most comfortable shopping on platforms like Jeugmark is because of their buyer protection policy.
Although, not all ecommerce websites in Nigeria are well regulated, in terms of customers’ fund safety, some of them try to make their platform as safe as possible.
Jeugmark Buyer’s Protection Policy for instance only releases payment to sellers only after the buyer has confirmed receipt of purchased items and also signified satisfaction.
Social media platforms however, remain the number-one driving force for ecommerce awareness as many ecommerce websites advertise on them to get the attention of their potential customers.
A survey by GlobalWebIndex revealed that 42 per cent of internet users turn to social media to search for a brand. This is due to the of the growing influence of social media. Search engine however remains the number one place, as 52 percent of people enquire about brands using it.
