‘Low trust continues to drag eCommerce potential in Nigeria’
Low trust environment has been identified as a major limitation affecting electronic commerce (eCommerce) besides the conventional challenges such as low asset investments, poor standards and service quality and poor logistics.
Findings showed that Nigeria’s trust deficit proved to be a unique challenge to the extent that many Nigerians are not comfortable making payments online.
Giving more insight into the extent of the challenge, Chief Executive Officer of Dellyman, a tech logistics start-up, Dare Ojo-Bello, said the fundamental issue with the Nigerian kind of environment is the issue of low trust.
Bello said elsewhere, you can give a package to somebody for the delivery without any fear whereas “here we are in a low trust environment.
“People don’t even trust you will deliver their packages. They don’t even trust that you will deliver as and when due. Some customers are not even comfortable paying online for goods and services. So, this issue of trust must be looked into adequately.”Ojo-Bello stressed the need for timely delivery of items purchased online, through a technology platform.
He announced that the company, which raised about $250,000 in pre-seed funding in addition to $50,000 in bootstrapped funds, has set up a technology-driven platform where customers and logistics partners meet to transact e-Commerce deliveries and that it is designed to bring efficiency to the logistics industry.
Ojo-Bello, who stressed the importance of same-day delivery in a logistics business, during a Partners’ Forum Lagos, said: “Dellyman’s unique selling proposition is same-day delivery, which seeks to address a peculiar industry challenge. In the logistics industry, no company can guarantee priority and time-sensitive package within a short period. So Dellyman’s model addresses that particular industry challenge and we focus on same-day delivery within the shortest possible time.”
Having identified the impact of COVID-19 pandemic that has brought about a new normal of a digital lifestyle, increased Internet penetration, increased access to smartphones and mobile devices, among others as key drivers of the logistics business, Ojo-Bello said: “Our targets and growth plans are to do between 10,000 and 30,000 deliveries per day by 2021, and later increase it to between 50,000 to 80,000 deliveries per day in the next 18-36 months and then between 150,000 and 200,000 deliveries per day in the next 48-60 months.
We will also increase brand awareness and visibility through aggressive marketing campaigns and deepen technology for better customer experience and usability.”
We do not operate warehouses and hubs and we do not sell items of any sort. What we have is an e-Commerce platform that handles logistics in terms of deliveries. Customers call us for on the spot booking of items for deliveries and we deliver same day within Lagos and its environs, Ojo-Bello said, adding that Dellyman will continue to leverage technology to meet up with all our services like training, same-day delivery, insurance of packages, technical clinics, verifying riders, among others.
For the technical clinics, we have incorporated into our platform, space where motor-bike mechanics, and spare parts dealers could register on our platform so that when people search for them on our platform, they could be reached in various locations nearest to the customer. It’s all about partnerships and driving the partnerships and services with technology, he said.
Speaking about the responsibility of handling deliverables, Ojo-Bello said: “We take responsibility for all deliveries entrusted to our care for delivery.
“If anything goes wrong in terms of damage of items during delivery, we make sure we take responsibility, otherwise it destroys our business model. To address issues like this, we are in partnership with Law Union and Rock Insurance Company, who takes responsibility to ensure all items are delivered on our platform.”
“As long as technology is evolving, Dellyman wants to take the lead in leveraging the best of technology to deliver logistics services on our platform. Drones and driverless cars are becoming the norm and we will explore all technologies to deliver items,” he said.
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