November 26, 2014 – : Konga, Nigeria’s largest online shopping platform has been busy in the last six months, raising new Nigerian millionaire through innovative approach to business in Nigeria.
Six Months On, Konga Marketplace Makes Millionaire Merchants
About 6 months ago, Konga made a debut with a sellers’ platform called the Konga Mall, allowing sellers from all over Nigeria to create shops, display their products online and sell to customers via konga.com.
Since then, thousands of sellers are actively selling on Konga Mall, with many of them emerging as millionaires on the platform having traded thousands of items.
Merchandise listed on the platform range from fashion to a vast array of gadgets and electronic items, beauty products, home and kitchen wares and so on.
Commenting on the first six months of Konga Mall, Coordinator for Konga Marketplace Tejumade Fola-Alade, explained that, with the internet penetration in Nigeria today, Konga Mall allows retailers to have access to over 50 million Nigerians online.
“It has been a great couple of months on our Marketplace and a win-win situation for all parties. On the part of our customers, they now have access to a more robust assortment of thousands of additional items to satisfy various tastes and budget.
“On the other hand, the marketplace sellers also grow their business financials and reach; benefiting from the technical infrastructure Konga has built up over the years – enabling them to reach millions of loyal Konga customers all over Nigeria. The burden of logistics to the final consumer is completely born by Konga and it is very easy to sign up on the Konga website”, he said.
To further support and build capability for owners of Nigerian businesses Konga also runs the Konga Seller Academy – a learning and training platform for esteemed merchants and other interested business owners seeking to grow their knowledge on e-commerce.
“The Seller Academy provides new, budding and experienced entrepreneurs with different learning opportunities that provide sellers, small and large business owners with business skill exposure via training programs, seminars and learning testimonial from successfully set up sellers”, he said.
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So far, sellers on Konga are enjoying the privilege. For instance, Blessing Olurin who owns a store called Little Angels praised Konga Mall saying, “I’ve enjoyed extremely huge patronage. There’s no day without sales. I am always very happy for the repeat customers and particularly glad that customers receive their orders in record time”.
Another customer, Seun Oloyede who runs Seolak Store expressed similar sentiment, noting that, “Within 100 days of joining the platform, we received and processed over 2,000 product orders on Konga Market Place”.
As news of the success of selling on the site spreads, the platform is seeing almost a thousand new sellers register on the site each week.
Konga’s CEO and Founder, Sim Shagaya explains the strategic reason the company decided to expand its operations with the Konga Mall platform. According to him, Konga’s mission is to be the engine of trade and commerce in Africa’.
“We know that Commerce and business are key drivers of Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).If well harnessed, the use of ICT could even help bridge the unemployment gap in Nigeria. Konga is promoting entrepreneurship in Nigeria through this platform, as merchants can start a business with minimal investment.
Entrepreneurs just have to register on Konga, then we help showcase their merchandise on Konga Mall to nationwide visibility and distribution. This is a model that will prove very interesting for Africa in the long-term and will be a big part of e-commerce in Africa,” he said.
3 Comments
Yes its all glam news reports but the reality is that konga merchants are not being paid and are left out of pocket and in debt, Ask mr Kolawole and amaka the VP of metchant services. They know the truth. They know how much merchants are suffering at their hands.
Merchants just cut theor losses and move on. Nigeria we hail there,
Konga is real. People are making it there. Even if you are a manufacturer, importer or developer. For instance I develop softwares and I sell them on Konga. Here is the link http://www.konga.com/Cendstudios
I highly recommend for merchants trying to be entrepreneurs to not rely solely on Konga. You are just a small business owner that has to live by the rules of Konga. I have an eCommerce website and we use Konga as supplemental income for slow moving goods. We had over 25% of our goods shipped with Konga returned, another N300,000 still not accountable for after 6 months shipped and they refuse to refund us or dont know where it is. We could have sold those in our website. Customers leave bad reviews to spite you and you cannot even challenge it even though Konga knows you are correct.
I am sorry but you will never be on the level of amazon. You fail to protect your merchants who do 90% of the work after the item is sold and refuse to return their goods or refund them. Never ship items on your own to customers, as Konga customers are the most flakiest people i have ever dealt with, Easy to order and never pay. Look at the profiles of the customers and you will see that most of them dont even pay for 50% of the orders sent to them. Use K-express and let Konga eat the courier fees for shipping and return. Do not incur this on your own by self fulfilling.