THE GROWING ONLINE USERS IN NIGERIA PRESENT SOME NEW OPPORTUNITIES

From the data available from NCC (Nigerian Communication Commission), the present subscriber data shows that 86m users are online in Nigeria and 80% of these online users are mobile. A little mathematical calculation shows that the figure will hit 100m plus by 2016 and that is huge indeed.

The first casualty to this growth will be the cost of shop rentals as the market place will change dramatically.

Let us examine these opportunities systematically

Small scale farmers

I was in a city called Jos in Nigeria just some few weeks ago and I met a farmer harvesting cucumber. I asked him if he will be willing to sell to me and he said why not. Well I requested for a $2 cucumber and I was taken aback when he filled a bucket for me. Wow! That was a $25 cucumber in Abuja.

The distance between Abuja and Jos is just less than 400km and the price disparity is unbelievable in terms of these farm produce.

Think of a situation where this farmer could sell his farm produce straight to me in Abuja without my presence in Jos. If he can go online to do his business then he will have almost 80m customers available for his market. That will turn him around within months.

How can this be done?

Well, all it will take is for the farmers to form a cooperative society of some sort create an online presence where they can showcase their wares, this online presence can also be provided via a third party who collects commission from the farmers sales as a fee for the provision of the online facility, and advertise their presence, and they are in business, directly from the farm to the consumer.

The advantages are win-win; a win for the farmer where he gets a bigger bargain and a larger market and larger volume of sales. For the consumer, he is getting fresh farm vegetables at bargain prices.

What of delivery and payment

The delivery business to the consumer presents another business opportunity for entrepreneurs. It does present an opportunity for logistic companies to restructure new business model that will fit into this new market place. Delivery of the goods from the point of sale to the consumer premises is a huge opportunity for entrepreneurs. This can be on fix contract basis between the farmer’s cooperatives and the logistic company who will in turn provide the warehousing and fresh quick delivery of these fresh farm goods within specific time frames.

I have purposely started discussing these opportunities from the trivial; that is from opportunities we overlook, and then we will migrate to the great ones.

What about payments? The Central Bank of Nigeria Bank Verification Number will make it very easy to dictate a fraudulent manipulation in the payment system. But again there is countless online and mobile payment opportunities present today to make payment easy and convenient. Of course you cannot rule out risks 100%, it will always be there, but it is manageable and  very easily dateable.

I have used the vegetable farmers as an example, but these same opportunities applies to poultry farmers producing lots of egg and any other type of farming including snail, etc.

The point is that the huge online market square will turn around the way we will be doing business from next year. The key drivers will be:

1.       Form a recognizable cooperative or union

2.       Open up an online presence

3.       Create an awareness through the traditional media as well as the social media

4.       Establish an acceptable payment methods

5.       Organize a delivery method

6.       And……. Smile to the banks

How will the present changing market landscape benefit the skilled or Semi labor?

The critical factors in setting small businesses includes but not limited to:

·         Rents

·         Access to finance

·         Advertisement

·         Etc.

These hinder start up greatly. The changing landscape in the market place has changed all that.

Whether you are a mechanic, an electrician, or a plumber, these limitations don’t exist anymore.

All that is required now is just a little skill in the online environment; knowing how to browse, send email messages, engage with social media communities to sell your skill, and then maintain trust and integrity. All of these activities can be done through a simple tool: a cheap smart phone within the range of $50 to $200

But this will work out best in a group environment. The artisans will do well by forming themselves into either a group or cooperatives.

A group might be a team of a) artisans, which may comprise, electricians, plumbers, cable installers for a house hold maintenance on one hand and

b) A group of auto mechanics, auto electricians, and panel beaters

Grouping themselves can create some element of trust for those who may want to hire there services and also provide a total solution in one area.

The key ingredients they will need here are

1.        skills

2.       Tools

3.       An online presence, preferably via the social media through a smart phone, where they can advertise their skills and maintain a current updates of  activities

4.       Smart phones

Effectively they can work from home without the expensive need of a rented shop or spaces.

All that will be required is aggressive marketing of their skills by providing updates on what they have done and what they can do. They key here will be integrity and honesty on their part, as any show of dishonesty will end the business for them almost immediately.

Mobile Workshop on wheel

This is another unique opportunity opening up as a result of the growing internet users in Nigeria. Think of the unit as a complete auto workshop on wheel fully equipped for vehicle recovery, spare parts and maintenance on site.

You can render this service on subscription basis, where users subscribe to this service, paying some token on a monthly basis. Users who subscribe to this service will then be allowed to reach the mobile unit, by phone, SMS, email, mobile apps, and faults attended to on site.

Becoming an Online Reseller

One of the opportunities that this number of internet users in Nigeria is online reselling.

Now this is another business you can start without owing a shop and with zero capital. All you need to do is an online presence and internet access, with either your laptop or tablet.

How it works

Decide on the goods you want to market

What you can sell online is limitless, from houses, to kitchen knife. Anything and everything is possible. So decide on what you have to sell. Don’t be a jack of all trade here. Focus on the few items you really love to sell, you that you can have mastery of both the market, the buyers and the actual owners of such goods.

Effectively, you are just a middle man for these items, but doing it online.

The most effective way is to have some agreement with those you want to sell their wares online.

Such agreement will include but not limited to;

·         Goods returned as a result of warrantee issues

·         Pickup and delivery

·         Payment methods

Being a middle man may just be you are only entitled to a commission as you sell at the shop or dealers price. You may also get some dealership discount and sell at your own price.

All of these you can do at the comfort of your home or office.

If you still want details on this, you can get in touch with me for more details.

Online Mall

Right, I mean a mall, but not a physical mall. It is a virtual mall: a mall that exists on the global village.

However this mall can do the same thing that physical mall does but virtual. It does mean that you can rent a space to people on your mall, you can sell goods on your mall, and people can drive into your mall and do shopping.

All of these are the opportunities available today within the Nigerian space and still growing.

An industry research conducted by Pyramid research team has revealed that Nigeria’s telecommunications market will generate over $11 billion at the tail end of 2019 as against $3Billion generated in 2013. The higher percentage will come from data users on cheap mobile phones. The reasons are simple:

·         Nigeria is a growing population and a growing economy

·         The age range from 1 to 24 years forms 104million presently

·         The disposable income is still low, hence the cheaper phones will form the appeal for this young population

The projection also unveiled that that the number of mobile subscribers in the country may hit 182 million by that date.