Trust Is E-Commerce’s Greatest Challenge In Nigeria - Industry Experts

Although considerable progress can be said to have been made in the e-commerce world in Nigeria, trust has been identified as its greatest and biggest challenge.

This much was stated by the Managing Directors of Africa Internet Group-backed Kaymu, Lamudi, Carmudi, Hellofood and EasyTaxi at the Fireside chat event hosted by iDea Nigeria, a Lagos-based incubator and accelerator for techpreneurs.

Sefik Bagdadioglu, MD of Kaymu, stated that the issue of trust is commonplace in the world right now but said companies need to come up with ways to earn the confidence and loyalty of their customers.

To earn the trust and loyalty of its customers, Kaymu allows cash on delivery as well as online payment solutions through Kaymu Safepay, which serves as an escrow service.

At EasyTaxi, a taxi hailing app, drivers are constantly trained in-house and through collaborations with partners such as Google and other government agencies to ensure that acceptable standards are maintained at all times because, according to EasyTaxi’s MD, Adaora Asala, “A bad experience with one driver can have an adverse effect on all the other excellent drivers.”

People can wait for a few hours and even days to get their clothes or cars or properties but with food, it is a different kettle of fish.

Customers want their food “as he dey hot” and on time too and as such, food ordering site, Hellofood had to pivot into logistics by owning their own delivery bikes to control the customer’s experience and, according to Hellofood’s MD, Guillaume Leblond, put in place“a dedicated team offering solutions to restaurants to ensure that customers trust us to deliver their food few minutes from the time they ordered it.”

At Lamudi, a real-estate marketplace, it is believed that trust is built through consistency and continued innovation, and as such “we are constantly evaluating ourselves to improve the quality of our agents, our response time, customer feedback and so on,” said Obi Ejimofo, Lamudi’s MD.

He further said, “As a result we came up with the Dial4Home, a hotline which enables people speak directly to an operator who will guide them through their property search and more recently the mortgage calculator which calculates the mortgage cost on each property you buy on Lamudi.”

Speaking on the one thing every startup needs to get right, Leblond picked customer experience; Ejimofo pointed out the need to select a good team; Bagdadioglu said it was ensuring the product provides a solution to a prevalent problem; Asala stressed the importance of building a solid operational infrastructure through teamwork, while Amy Muoneke, Carmudi’s MD advised startups to keep optimizing their products to ensure customers keep seeing the value in their offerings.

The Firechat event, which took place on October 23, 2015, was put together to connect startup founders in the Nigerian tech ecosystem with Africa Internet Group leadership for the purpose of sharing knowledge, business showcase, product feedback and co-creation.

 Source - http://techloy.com/2015/11/02/trust-is-e-commerces-greatest-challenge-in-nigeria-report/