Nigeria is perhaps one of the most (if not the most) robust e-commerce countries in the African continent. You can tell this by the number of e-commerce companies targeting the Nigerian market. The fact that the country has a population of 170 million people with 88 million of them being regular users of the mobile internet; it is easy to see why Nigeria is an ideal market.
As far as classifieds marketplace is concerned, the country has already well-established players like OLX, Kaymu, and Ady.ng among others. This marketplace is about to get a bit too crowded with the entry of a new player, Efritin.com powered by Saltside Technologies.
Unlike the dominant player OLX, Efritin.com has taken a new approach. The classified delivers the goods to the buyers and collects the cash on behalf of the seller. Some might argue that this is not the approach they prefer in their classifieds, but from a business angle it might the right move. In the sense that Efritin.com wants to make deliveries and payments another source of revenue streams.
The company has already hit the campaign trail on Facebook and Google Ads. It certainly hopes to become at the very least the number two option after OLX. It might be important to note that OLX recently bought out its Nigerian competitor Tradestable run by Schibsted.
The parent company, Saltside Technologies also operates Tonaton.com in Ghana, Bikroy.com in Bangladesh, and ikman.lk in Sri Lanka. It will be interesting to see how the competition between Efritin.com and OLX pans out. Given the latter has always touted itself to be Africa’s number one (1) classifieds, and the former also is touting itself to be the same.
You should also note that Efritin.com’s sister company Totaton in Ghana has been quite successful with regards to creating awareness and widespread use across the country. Despite the fact that the Ghana Revenue Authority accused it of being fraudulent, but it goes without saying that most people have gotten the grasp of online classifieds.
