In my previous entry, I covered Internet shops in Nigeria and how disappointed I was at the fact that there aren’t many to cover.

To Run a successful Online Shop in Nigeria, requires an in-depth understanding of the Market and its Consumers. I learnt this the hard way in the past 5 years or so. The Nigerian consumer behaviour and the market dynamics is very different from what you would experience in the USA or even in the UK.

Havent said the later, Are Nigerians really ready to Buy things online?

The good news is, Yes, Nigerians would buy from a local shop that does it right and have a personalised approach to selling the items to them. Here is how to develop a successful online local shop in Nigeria for Nigerians.

The Product

The product you want to sell must be at the right price. The product must be available, cheap in comparison to local shops and of good quality. When choosing a product to list, ensure that the product cost price + the logistic cost is less than the cost of the product in the shop.

Your ultimate formula in determining whether a product is worthy of listing is
PRODUCT COST PRICE + LOGISTICS COST PRICE <=  LOCAL SHOP PRICE

Not all your products would make you a profit,  Products that would allow you to break even would support the selling of your inventory to reach your profit goals..

Do’s
1. Product Inventory: Ensure you have a supplier that can deliver your listed inventory at the right price regularly.
2. Product Description: Ensure that your product description in thorough, you don’t want to spend time answering questions about the listed product rather than just selling and providing after sales support.
3. Promotions: Always have weekly promotions even if it means selling it at cost price, that would allow you to lock in customer loyalty over a long period of time.

Dont’s
1. Lose Focus: if you want to sell electronics, don’t start listing under-garments and prepaid cards, stick to your niche and create another platform for the other products. Product Listing overload is not for the Nigerian consumer.They get confused easily.
2. Over Price: Don’t sell your products for more than the selling price at the local shop. No Nigerian consumer would buy a product for as little as 1 kobo more than the price they would get it at their locality.
3. Don’t choose a product that would not break even.

Most Nigerian consumers if not all, would not patronize an online shop for convenience. They would rather patronize an online shop for the pricing of its product. Hence having the right product at the right price would surely ensure a success.

Payments
Methods of payments in Nigeria has been a problem for a while, but the good news is internet banking, bank deposits still work fine. If you can afford the GTB Interswitch, do get them, but they are highely unreliable. The Most reliable way to accept payments in an online shop in Nigeria is through bank deposits, and bank transfers.

Logistics
Shipping your items within Nigeria is quiet cheap. The best approach would be to have special arrangements or contracts with the logisitics companies so that you would be able to lock in the cost of shipment with them.

There are a few local courier services like

Citylink Courier Nigeria Ltd
Air and Sea Freight, haulage, warehousing, parcel express, cargo handling and clearing etc.
Website: http://www.citylinkcourier.com

City Flex Express
Total logistics solution
Website: http://www.cityflexexpress.com

DHL Worldwide Express Int. (Nig.) Limited
Website: http://www.dhl.com.ng

The Identity
Your shop identity plays a very important role in getting customers to patronize you. No Nigerian would patronize a shop that has no identity. There are two ways to solve this problem, the personal approach or the corporate approach.

The personal approach entails writing a detailed page about yourself and putting down all your contact details. This type of identity declaration creates trust.

You do not need a registered company to start an online business in Nigeria, but if you can afford a registration do so, and there comes the corporate approach, where you introduce your company with all the details about your company.

Sales Platform
The sales platform is where you sell the products in your inventory. This involves a little investment on your part. You would need to get a Domain name for your shop and also a hosting account to host the domain name.

Example of opensource shopping cards are Opencart, Oscommerce and Zencart

There are many reliable web hosting and domain registration in Nigeria that would help you in setting up an opensource shop for as little as 6,000 Naira a year. One example of such companies is Nairahost, which is a leading provider of web hosting and domain registration in Nigeria.

Security
Security is also a very important and crucial component to ensuring the success of your online shop. To begin with, I would encourage the buying of a SSL Certificate to secure the transaction process. Consumers feel more comfortable shopping in a shop that has an SSL Certificate, in fact most consumers would not purchase products from a website that has no SSL Certificate. Most Hosting providers would install it for you for free after purchasing it.

Shipping and Returns Policy
This is the section of your website where you explain your policies regarding the shipment of purchased products and the kind of warranties your product has. This is a must as it creates a confidence in your listed products.

Marketing
Don’t spend money advertising on Google or Yahoo or even any advertisement network, this advertisement networks would not be able to deliver your advertisement to Nigerians, and it would be way too costly, for you to convert  enough sales to cover the cost of the customer acquisition through this channels.

So what should you invest your marketing budget on?

a. Search Engine Optimisation
- Ensure that your shop is searchable in major search engines, this is a must, there are a few SEO experts in Nigeria, that would charge a reasonable fee in ensuring your shop is search engine friendly and your content are properly indexed in search engines.
b. Paid Review Blogs
- There are many popular Nigerian blogs that would make a coverage on your blog for free, but many would do a thorough coverage at a fee.
c. Specific Blog ads slots
– Some Popular Nigerian blogs have a space for advertisement, like mine, you can enquire from the owners on how you can get your shop advertised by them.

And Lastly consistency, weekly promotions, regular newsletters to your existing customers on your new products and renewing the domain on a yearly basis would ensure that you not only become successful running an online shop in Nigeria but a profitable one.

Consultation

I provide free consultation on internet solutions and business systemization, but I charge on the implementation stage, if required of me. But  I would happily guide you through the setup of your online business for absolutely free. So Feel free to use my contact form if you are interested in my free consultation.

Can you purchase any product you want, from a local online shop in Nigeria?

This question popped into my head yesterday, and I decided to “Google” out of boredom on things a Nigerian in Nigeria can actually buy on the internet from a local internet shop  and get it delivered at their doorstep the following day or even days later. The revelation was very disappointing. I came across only one, and the old ones I featured in my post titled “E-commerce key player’s in Nigeria. are all dead.

I “Googled” for Electronics, Clothings, Shoes, Perfumes, airline tickets, Cinema tickets, Movies, and even Food. I would like to cover all the aforementioned categories.

The criteria is :-
1. The Online shop must have a product.
2. The Online shop must have a working shopping cart.
3. The Online shop must accept any form of payments.

Electronics
Buy Right according to their website is a subsidiary of Pragmatic Technologies Ltd, and evolved from ComputerPort and Xtaples both of which were founded in 2001 as Nigeria’s first online computer and office supplies stores respectively.

BuyRight product line includes, Computer Products, Personal and Home Electronics, Fashion, Sports Equipment, Personal Health Equipment, Toys, Office Supplies and Vehicles.

Buy Right Accepts Interswitch etransact and bank payments, and also delivers ordered products nationwide using DHL express

Do you have an Online Localised store in Nigeria?
Let me know by commenting, so I can Introduce it in Online shops in Nigeria Part 2

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I become very excited when I come across success stories of businesses in Africa. Blue Skies a Ghanian Fruit packager, that pre-packes fruit salads and juices for export to Europe was featured in BBC yesterday. In a coverage titled “Ghana’s juicy economic lesson“, Blue Skies was said to employ about 2,000 workers  made a whooping $20m (£15m) last year.

Such a success story not only re-assures African businesses their potential in Agricultural type of businesses, but inspires them on how they can create employment opportunities in the continent.

An Interesting thing to note is that Blue Skies is currently exploring the Ghanian market because sales have been affected by the economic crisies and suprisingly their sales are catching up locally.

According to Kennedy Afful the Finance Manager:

“The local market has grabbed our juice in such a fantastic manner,” said Kennedy Afful, who looks a little more cheery than when he was discussing the falling exports

“In March last year we were taking in just 200 cedis ($145; £105) a week from the juice sold in Ghana. But last week we took $7 000 from local sales and we anticipate by end of year we will reach $14,000 a week.”

They have a well designed website with lots of information about their products and market too. You can visit their website at
Blue Skies

It has been a long time and well I have been quiet busy trying to make a living. I woke up on the right side of the bed and decided that,  I should start blogging again. I do hope this would be for good.

A lot has happened since the last time I blogged, but today, I can’t help but mention a very interesting development in the dotcom industry in Nigeria. Two start-ups were launched, providing the same solution and that not been shocking enough, registered using a similar name or rather the same name with an addition of  “S”.

I present to you nairalist.com and nairalists.com.  Nairalist.com was registered on  25-Dec-2008, on Christmas, while Nairalists.com was registered a month or so later on the 01-Feb-2009.

Nairalist.com which was the first to launch uses a craiglist inspired concept to present classified advertisement targeted to Nigerians and friends of Nigeria; it was developed by Seun Osewa, the owner of the Nairaland forum.

Nairalists.com which surprisingly was launched one month or so later,  presents the same concept, a similar name, and an aggregated content from Nairalist, launched with an improved version of Nairalist.com with also a similar presentation style. This move was really shocking not only to the community but to the owner, who launched a legal campaign against the founder.

The question that plagued my mind then was, Did Nairalists.com infringed the copyright protection of Nairalist.com? It was apparent that the community contributed content was aggregated, but that act in particular is questionable; as  Nairalist.com does not own the content submitted by its members.

What then was the crime commited by Nairalists.com?

I discovered that Web pages fall under the concept of “Trade Dress” . This concept refers more broadly to a product’s physical appearance, including its size, shape, texture, colour(s), graphics, and other characteristics.

The U.S. Supreme Court established the standard a person wishing to protect certain trade dress must demonstrate to win in court.

1. First, the trade dress must be distinctive, either because it is inherently distinctive, or because it has acquired distinctiveness over time through public recognition.

2. Second, the trade dress must be non-functional.

3. Third, and finally, the trade dress of the defendant (person being sued) must be likely to cause confusion as to the source of the product or service.

4. Whether a Web site is inherently distinctive would seem a judgment call. Most Web site designers are shooting for a unique look, yet, that can make it easier, or harder, for any one site to stand out.

For popular Web sites this will be of less concern, for they may acquire distinctiveness, that is, recognition by the public, through their popularity. Many of us, for example, might recognize immediately the Yahoo or E-bay home pages.

The requirement that trade dress must not be functional looks at its impact on the competition.

Source:Can I trademark my Website

Now where does Nairalist vs Nairalist fall? (Below is the script of the conversation I had with an American attorney at Traverse Legal)

Brian Hall:
How May I help You?

Kayode Muyibi:
I am writing an article about two websites, and I was wondering if I can ask a few questions regarding trademark?

Brian Hall:
sure

Kayode Muyibi:
The subjects are www.nairalist.com vs nairalists.com

Kayode Muyibi:
Nairalist.com began a classifieds site , a month later nairalists.com was registered by another party for a similar service

Kayode Muyibi:
Now the question is, does Nairalists.com infringe any copyright or trademark law?

Kayode Muyibi:
Do note the difference in the names, as in the “s” that follows in the Nairalists

Brian Hall:
it depends, domain name rights are directly tied to trademark rights. If the owner of nairalist.com can establish trademark rights (either registered or common law) then the registrant of nairlists.com may be cybersquatting

Kayode Muyibi:
Then where does the trade dress clause apply?

Brian Hall:
Trade dress usually does not apply in domain name matters

Kayode Muyibi:
It applies to websites design? aesthetics?

Brian Hall:
it may, but those items tend to be considered as part of trademark infringement and the overall likelihood of consumer confusion analysis

Brian Hall:
trade dress is more akin to the particular packaging of a good, or architecture of a restaurant, etc.

Kayode Muyibi:
if a consumer confusion argument can be made, does nairalist have a case?

Kayode Muyibi:
1 month?

Brian Hall:
Again, it depends, what does nairalist mean? how long has it been used in commerce? are there third party fair uses of it in a descriptive or generic sense? these are the types of questions to consider

Kayode Muyibi:
yes, they have the same services but a little differences in their features.

Brian Hall:
1 month is an awfully short period of time to establish common law trademark rights under us law

Brian Hall:
we assess matters like this daily, identify the case law and provide a more detailed recommendation if you are interested in the future

Brian Hall:
good luck

Kayode Muyibi:
Thank you for your time. Thats about all for now.

My Thoughts

I am not a lawyer, but it doesn’t take a lawyer to understand that Nairalist.com does not have a case against Nairalists.com. But What do you think? Let me Know through your commentary.