Nigeria’s online marketplace TradeStable.co.ng has said the popularity of peer-to-peer services arae hitting an all time high in the country as people shift to riends than professionals for decisions on what to buy where.
The firm said peer-to-peer services have switched from computer networks to people, with apps and websites allowing users to receive services such as accommodation and traffic tips or purchase items such as clothes, electronic devices and cars not from professional service providers and shops but from other users.
Users are the main characters of this “peer-to-peer economy”, and led to the extreme success of sites such as Airbnb, CourchSurfing, Waze – recently purchased by Google – and the Nigeria peer-2-peer shopping site TradeStable, on which thousands of users buy cars, clothes and mobile phones from each-other.
The in-depth survey by TradeStable on the phenomena of peer-to-peer services and e-commerce shows results in an infographic above highlighting the growth, user data and top popular countries of all most popular services. Spring 2013 seems to be the period in which peer-to-peer services really “took off”, with couchsurfing and airbnb quickly reaching respectively 300.000 and 600.000 unique visitors per month, and the free classifieds sites of Schibsted Media Group – to which TradeStable belongs – reaching all-time-highs in traffic.
Tradestable also had an in-depth look at the Nigerian market revealing electronic items, clothes and cars as the products most often sold online. On the opposite side of the trade are shoppers, especially eager to buy TVs, iPhones, iPads, Bags and Shoes – these the most search-for items in the electronics and apparel categories. The research also traced a detailed portrait of Nigeria’s typical online shopper: mostly male and below the age of 30, shopping online on a monthly basis, with a very high a mount of shoppers under the age of 20.