Used goods marketplace closes shop in Nigeria

abiola

October 9, 2017 11:45 AM

CEO of the firm's parent company attributes their exit from Nigeria to unfavorable economic conditions, internet adoption and expensive data.

E-commerce company Efritin.com launched in August 2015 in Lagos is closing up shop.

According to Nils Hammer, CEO of Saltside Technologies (the Swedish-based parent company of Efritin, cites high cost of data, poor internet penetration and adoption as well as economic woes of the country as the prevalent factors responsible for their exit from the Nigerian e-commerce market.

E-commerce companies like Jumia has had dwindling revenues due to the economic downturns faced in Nigeria and recently had to re-brand all its business portfolio units into one subsidiary - Jumia foods, Jumia Travel and so on to reduce overhead costs.

Other e-commerce businesses in Nigeria are suffering similar fate.

Mobile internet penetration in Nigeria (that is, mobile internet users at 91.5 million vs the Nigerian population estimated at 192 million) according to TwinPine mobile trends 2017 report is pegged at an average score of 47%.

Also, according to the report, Nigeria is said to be the world’s most mobilized country, mobile traffic growing from 76% to 81%, with smartphone penetration pegged at 30%.

Going by the trend report as well, the percentage of Nigerians that purchase products and services online via mobile in a week compared to other activities like visiting social networks, playing games and checking emails is as low as 3%. The report goes further to say that Nigerians don’t make a purchase or patronize a service via their personal computers, that is 0%.

Some of the reasons that have been attributed as to why Nigerians don’t make purchases on their phones include fear of buying fake items, asides delivery delays and charges.

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The promising Efritin.com were later entrants into the Nigerian e-commerce space that already saw similar ventures OLX and Jiji gain some traction and share of the classifieds market.

All this may have contributed in one way or the other to Efritin’s misfortunes in Nigeria.

Efritin started operations in August 2011 in Sweden and has spread its market network across other continent. “Saltside Technologies has the largest classified market sites in Bangladesh, Ghana and Sri Lanka.

abiola