The Managing Directors of Kaymu, Hellofood, Carmudi, Lamudi and Easy Taxi – members of Africa Internet Group (AIG) – have identified trust as the greatest challenge faced by e-commerce in Nigeria.

This was stated at the Fireside Chat held by iDea Nigeria, a Lagos-based incubator and accelerator for techpreneurs in Nigeria on October 23, 2015.

Obi Ejimofo, Managing Director of real-estate marketplace Lamudi.com.ng, opined that the only way to build trust is through consistency. The challenge is to continue to innovate. “At Lamudi we are constantly evaluating ourselves to improve the quality of our agents, our response time, customer feedback and so on. As a result we came up with the Dial4Home, a hotline which enables people speak directly to an operator who will guide them through their property search and more recently the mortgage calculator which calculates the mortgage cost on each property you buy on Lamudi.”

According to Kaymu MD, Sefik, the issue of trust is prevalent everywhere in the world and companies need to come up with ways to earn the confidence and loyalty of their stakeholders. At Kaymu we are passionate about building and maintaining trust within our online community as such we provide cash on delivery as well as online payment solutions through Kaymu Safepay, which serves as an escrow service.

“We are constantly seeking ways to expand Kaymu in the e-commerce eco-system while impacting on people’s lives daily. One of the ways is by removing the distinction between online and offline. We have launched the Kaymu Village within communities, a physical location which accelerates interaction between buyers and sellers. We want to build inspiring stories, like that of Chioma Agha, one of the sellers on our platform who was selected to meet with Barack Obama and so we have created the Entrepreneurs Club which provides a platform for sellers and entrepreneurs to exchange ideas,” Bagdadioglu added.

“A successful business is one that can preserve the trust of its customers,” said Adaora Asala, MD of taxi hailing appEasyTaxi. A bad experience with one driver can have an adverse effect on all the other excellent drivers as such we constantly train our drivers in-house and through collaborations with partners such as Google and other government agencies to ensure they maintain acceptable standards at all times.

With Food ordering site Hellofood every order is a miracle, Guillaume Leblond, Managing Director, stated. People can wait for a few hours, sometimes days, to get their clothes or cars or property but with food, they want it hot and on time, hence we have had to pivot into logistics by owning our own delivery bikes to control the customers’ experience

In addition we have a dedicated team offering solutions to restaurants to ensure that customers trust us to deliver their food few minutes from the time they ordered it.

Speaking on the one thing every startup needs to get right, Leblond highlighted customer experience while Ejimofo pointed out the need to select a good team. For Bagdadioglu it was ensuring the product provides a solution to a prevalent problem, meanwhile Asala stressed the importance of building a solid operational infrastructure through teamwork.

Managing director of vehicle marketplace, Amy Muoneke, advised startups to keep optimising their products to ensure customers keep seeing the value in their offerings, saying: “You need to identify your target market to ensure you are providing goods and services that are useful and relevant to them through the appropriate channels. For instance, our target markets are people who are actively working towards owing or changing their cars and so our resources are spent marketing to that sector of the market and we are constantly developing new ideas and innovation that allows the buying and selling of cars online via the Carmudi platform easier.”

The event was hosted to connect startup founders in the Nigerian tech eco-system with AIG leadership for the purpose of sharing knowledge, business showcase, product feedback and co-creation.

•Photo shows, L-R; Guillame Leblond, MD Hellofood; Obi Ejimiofo, MD Lamudi; Sefik Bagdadioglu, MD Kaymu; Adaora Asala, MD Easyatxi; and Amy Muoneke MD Carmudi.

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