With internet becoming the next big thing, Nigerians are taking advantage, setting up several models of online businesses. Most popular of them are eCommerce platforms/online marketplaces. Despite the competition in this space, with a few platforms dominating, lots of others are springing up and joining the struggle to make a name for themselves
Offers.ng is one of the newest to join the ever-growing eCommerce industry. Founded by Anjola Adebayo, the platform is an online marketplace that enables Nigerians to trade several products in several categories.
In this interview with Anjola, he revealed more about the platform, how it works and how he aims to set it apart from the growing number of eCommerce platform.
Tell us a little about yourself
My name is Adebayo-Oyetoro Anjola, I’m a student of UNILAG and a co-founder of offers.ng
Tell us about offers.ng
Offers NG is a is a platform to trade. You post your goods and services as ads and people who are interested in what you’re offering would get in touch with you.
What inspired the idea for it?
We saw the need to bridge the gap between sellers and buyers, then the idea to bridge that gap was conceived about 12months ago, we did our research on the market. Checked its viability and other people offering same services then decided on beginning Offers NG.
What does it take for users to list items for sales on the platform?
Basically, just your Facebook login or email address. Listing an Ad is in 5 stages – Create an account; Click on post ad free; Add your product category and description; Upload a picture (we found out ads with pictures receive more engagement); Click on submit.
What strategies are in place to ensure items up for sale are original and buyers do not fall prey to scam?
Our system flags “too good to be true” ads and also we manually review ads. We also require a Facebook /email sign up to be able to post ads. There is also a report scam feature where a buyer can report a scammer. We are also working on other safety verification features to be rolled out soon.
Does offers.ng get a commission when users make sales on the platform?
No we don’t, every transaction is free.
There are a number of online marketplaces in Nigeria. What makes offers.ng stand out?
We’re first and foremost a Nigerian brand, building for the Nigerian market. We are responsive to the market, making trading as seamless as possible. Our primary aim is to bridge the gap between SMEs and their prospective sellers by offering more in terms of innovations that makes trading easier and efficient.
We are also looking to be more secure, most secure if possible to reduce scam rate to the barest minimum. As we roll out more features, the differences will become too obvious to ignore.
What are the challenges you faced getting the startup running, and how did you overcome them?
Every day presents a new challenge, however conversion has so far proven the biggest challenge and we’re gradually overcoming. We have found out practically that every online success is made offline, especially in the Nigerian market. We are concentrating on building an offline market, and it seems to be working.
However, this is a long-term project for us all, we have kept it lean, and we know we will succeed.
Tell a little about your foray into entrepreneurship.
My entrepreneurship journey basically began in 2016. I had started learning web development and was looking for projects to commit to so as to broaden my knowledge base and improve my skill as I had just dropped out.
I was seeking advice from my partner when he mentioned he had an idea, after he explained the intricacies of the idea, I bought into it but was first skeptical as I didn’t want to waste my time on a futile effort. He convinced me to partake in the market research and from then ‘it started making sense’, and I’m happy I took the plunge.
But I must confess tweets and posts by people like Jason Njoku, Victor Asemota, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji and most especially Mark Essien have helped a lot.
Entrepreneurship has changed my orientation towards life and helped shaped my attitude towards learning even in school.
