With the steady growth of e-commerce in Nigeria, indigenous companies are looking to expand and tap into opportunities in the online market space.
One of such companies is aniwura.com, a Lagos based e-commerce platform that recently launched Africa’s first multidimensional Business-to-Business (B2B), Online-to-Offline (O2O) , and Business-to-Government (B2G) services on a single platform.
The unique platform, which was launched at the weekend, is said to provide e-procurement solutions and various categories ranging from electronics, fashion, agriculture, manufacturing and industrial equipment, IT, and services.
Omolara Ogomudia, CEO and founder of aniwura.com said she decided to launch the market place after spending several years as an entrepreneur and researcher in Nigeria, realising how difficult it was to source for products online in this part of the world.
“I was constantly frustrated with ordering supplies and services in Nigeria unlike when I go to China. In particular, I felt the entire process of sourcing, approval and shipping could easily be improved upon,” Ogomudia said.
“I also realised that it is becoming obvious that many of the buyers at companies had become accustomed to purchasing things online for their personal use, and also wanted to purchase online for their businesses.
“Millennials are now like the key decision makers for company sourcing. This changing of the guard means they expect the same convenient access to shopping for personal purchases to be available when they search for business solution,” she added.
Speaking at the launch of the online platform, Sola Teniola, President, Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) said he was incredibly proud of this initiative, as he had always advocated for the exportation of Nigeria’s talent.
“I really want to encourage aniwura.com to go beyond Nigeria and be the next alibaba.com of the world and I want to use my position and the platform of ATCON to ensure that we not only have mobile phones but we have service to use those phones to access aniwura.com,” he said.
Aniwura.com says its market place will offer products and services wholesale prices from merchants to a broad base of buyers from companies across various industries from such organisations as healthcare, electrical systems and components, manufacturing companies, travel, food and entertainment, Government, security and safety, and across other industries.
Asked how businesses can explore and benefit from aniwura.com, Ogomudia said businesses of any sort are expected to subscribe on the platform for a fee, after which they would be verified to clear issues of trust with payment.
“We have a system on the platform that deals with suppliers verification. However, there are free subscribers so it left for buyers to choose if they want to patronise a verified supplier or a free subscriber. There are also some specific industries that require certification so we would make sure that we have their certificates verified before they can be verified and profiled on the platform.
“aniwura.com does not charge sellers of products a commission on the value of transaction since it is strictly a subscription based model,” she added.
The initial investment by the company was not disclosed but it currently has about 30 employees.
JUMOKE AKIYODE
