Nigerian small and medium-scale enterprises save about 50% of development costs when they are on U-Mall, a platform developed by Netplus Advisory in partnership with United Bank for Africa (UBA).
In an exclusive chat, Wole Faroun, Managing Director of Netplus Advisory said the platform was developed to provide comprehensive e-commerce solutions to Nigerian businesses.
“With the online channel becoming increasingly adopted by consumers in Nigeria, it has become a viable channel for business however most businesses are unable to effectively take advantage due to cost and technical know-how hence the need for a solution like U-Mall,” he said.
In addition to saving costs in development, he said the turnaround time is also shorter as the platform is set up immediately.
“On timing, getting them setup is immediate – matter of minutes versus weeks/months it takes to setup an e-commerce website. On marketing spend the savings is around N100K per month for anyone really trying to be successful online. There are similar savings for logistics/order fulfillment/customer service. These are all taking care of on behalf of the merchant,” he said.
He added that the number of businesses on the platform is increasing.
He said: “We got over 100 businesses in the first week of launch. It’s been increasing ever since – but because of KYC involved, it takes time for the actual site to be made available to customers. The bank needs to do verification of the businesses.”