Characteristically, the majority of
informal retail businesses are largely unstructured despite their huge
potential. Nigeria’s informal retail business is estimated at $100 billion.
The food and consumer goods retail market
alone is estimated to be worth over $40 billion, and there are millions of
operators in that space.
For those that make retailing their daily
occupation, they do face some challenges sometimes.
Mrs. Joyce Chukwu (not real name) typifies
the problems an average Nigerian micro retailer goes through.
Delivered of twins recently, Mrs. Joyce has
found it more tasking to run her grocery store which is about 30 minutes away
from her house, and caring for her three-year-old son alongside her newborn
twins
Madam JC, as her customers fondly call her,
finds it inconvenient to leave the house very early to beat traffic and get to
a popular market where she gets goods for her store. She also moves around in
fear of robbery because of cash money she goes to the market with.
These in addition to opportunity costs,
dangers of travel, lack of financial advice, inadequate transport for purchased
goods are part of the ordeals of women who are engaged in retail business due
to Nigeria’s difficult social and economic terrain.
It is noteworthy, however, that the
emergence of B2C and B2B e-commerce platforms has and is creating an
environment that is more enabling for micro businesses.
With digital technology, retailers no
longer have to deal with those issues highlighted above as e-commerce – one of
the key gains of digital revolution – continues to impact our daily life,
behaviour and choices, which also portend good for micro businesses.
Founder of Alerzo, a leading B2B e-commerce
company, Adewale Opaleye, said the beauty of e-commerce platforms lies in their
power to leverage technology to create opportunities for businesses including
micro retail outlets as well as power them with digital solutions to improve
and increase their efficiency.
He stated that with an array of Alerzo’s
tech-driven digital solutions, retailers can order and make payment for goods
as well as restock online or offline through USSD.
Opaleye stated that e-commerce platforms
also provide warehousing and fulfilment solutions to suppliers while also
delivering ordered goods at free cost to retailers. For example, Alerzo has
been providing free delivery services to retailers for over two years.
“On our Alerzoshop retail app, we have a
vast assortment available to our customers to choose from, and we offer free
delivery in all the over 13 cities we’re currently operational. We change the
landscape for them (retailers) through on time delivery.
‘‘For the past two years, we have delivered
to informal retailers at no cost. With our delivery services, retailers save
time, energy, and resources that they would have otherwise expended in
restocking. These benefits have resulted in 85% of our retailers reducing their
two to four times a week restock trips to zero,” he disclosed.
Other areas where B2B e-commerce platforms
intervene include providing authentic goods and right pricing to retailers,
thereby protecting the end-users from buying adulterated goods and being
affected by unreasonable price-hikes especially by unapproved intermediaries.
The interventions also include providing
credit facilities and financial literacy to retailers which further eases the
way they run their businesses.
For Alerzo boss, supporting informal
retailers is even a sort of empowerment initiative because majority of the
retailers are women, 70 per cent of whom are primary breadwinners and
contributing to Nigeria’s economy and the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
With more informal retailers taking
advantage of B2B e-commerce, and Alerzo and other platforms deepening
opportunities on how technology can be further harnessed to empower informal
retailers, e-commerce will be helping many businesses grow sustainably and
thrive in today’s dynamic environment.
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