How to start your e-commerce business in Nigeria- tutorisl class

This is a sequel to the post on Top 75 business ideas for 2015. If
you’ve not read that, please do as that helps you 1 assess if
your business idea is a good one or not.

What is e-commerce?

Simply put, E-commerce is selling electronically via the internet.
There are some key advantages of this such as you are open 24/7;
you have no geographical restrictions, lower cost as you will not
incur major office/warehousing space.
There is a recent adoption of e-commerce in Nigeria. You can
benefit from this trend too. To do e-commerce, please note the
below:

1. You must have a reliable e-commerce site. There are
many platforms that provide e-commerce service such as
Shopify, Big-commerce, open cart, magnento and woo
commerce. Key selection criteria for your site should be
‘ease of content management’ and ‘ease of payment
through Nigerian payment gateways’. The payment
gateway is the application that connects your website
shopping cart to your merchant account. The payment
gateway what collects the credit card information from the
customer, encrypt it and sends it to the merchant account
for processing. An example is interswitch.

When selecting a payment gateway you want to select one
that is compatible with your shopping cart, offers good
pricing, has the ability to facilitate all payment functions
(payments, voids, refunds, etc), offers robust fraud
protection, is PCI compliant and has an interface for you to
run reports on your sales.

Each platform has its pros and cons so be sure to review
thoroughly or consult and I.T service provider before selection.
You can get an ecommerce site set up with these platforms with
as little as $30/month to as much as $190 depending on the
storage size, the number of products you can list, the reporting
tools. Generally, Woocommerce has an easy interphase and
doesn’t require complex programming unlike some other
platforms.

2. Be sure of your supply: Be sure of a constant supply
source for your product. The last thing you want is to have
customer orders that you cannot meet.
3. Be clear on your distribution/delivery . Know how you will
deliver your products to customers in good timing. You
can partner with trusted courier companies to ensure more
efficient deliveries within and outside your city of
residence.
4. Have friendly payment terms: In a country like Nigeria,
customers tend to prefer payment on delivery as it is more
reassuring. Strive to have this option.
5. Generate awareness for your site . You need to make
people aware of your site. The recommendation is to have
online ads to generate the awareness of your brand.
Another way to sell online is to place your product on e-
commerce sites that have a market place option. A good
example is Konga.com. Listing on Konga is free however,
some commission is charged upon sales. Refer to http://

shq.konga.com/ for details.