I started a review of the e-commerce industry in Nigeria basically on-line shopping and its users experience some days back. If you have missed any, you can read about them by just clicking on any of these: BriNGitBay, Sabunta, taafoo, and Konga.
Today’s write-up consists of 3 different on-line retailers or would you say 3 different Nigerian e-commerce companies. You might just be wondering why has he put the 3 together and not talk about each like his being doing? This is intentional and for a few reasons:
First, buylikemagic.com, 3AL.com, and 3stiches.com come across to me as trendy on-line stores like you have republic.co.uk in the UK. These three fall into the same category of what the young out-going person would love to have stored in its bookmark, hence my juxtaposed writing.
I would like to start by saying that these three websites are fantastic. Like the just concluded London 2012 Olympics, I would give a gold medal to 3stiches.com while buylikemagic.com and 3AL.com can wrestle for silver and bronze.
3stiches.com
If you want to be trendy and were the rave of the town, then turn to 3stiches.com. The page background, pictures and item clarity are fantastic. At 3stiches.com, it would be difficult to be mis-lead as all ifnormation needed for site navigation can be found both vertically and horizontally. Though a little typo in the weekly opening time which can be easily fixed, 3stiches.com gives all required information for contact, however I could not reach 3stiches.com via the displayed land-line numbers and mobile numbers. They were basically not reachable. This I think should be fixed on time as definitely is a sign to turn away on-line customers.
Another issue I found very disturbing is some items do not have the “add to cart” link and in some pages images overlap the “add to cart” link. A good example would be when you click the accessories link. I also think since Nigeria does not have that so much land-line, a mobile phone information would be adequate or making land-line (phone as seen on the 3stiches.com) optional.
3AL.com
hmmmm, 3al.com. I got confused at 3al.com, so I decided to call the contact number. I was able to speak with a contact person (name with-held) and she informed me 3al.com is yet to lunch. However, all cards listed on the site have being incorporated and all the items currently on the sites are dummy items. After the lunch, shoppers would be able to make payments for products advertised. Therefore we would not be having full details of 3al.com now.
You see why your contact number is important!
buylikemagic.com
buylikemagic.com greeted me with some wonderful wrist watches. I felt like grabbing from my screen. The prices are quite nice as well. Yes, I noticed prices are good on buylikemagic.com. With respect to look and feel I definitely would give buylikemagic.com a good score. Reason being, its encompassed all an on-line shopper needs to get through for an on-line shopping experience; its even got a wish list. What you should not try is using your visa card which is not registered in Nigeria.
This would bring my reviews to an end. I am bringing it to an end as I have come across a lot and worth writing about and some not worth the time. Most of which worth writing about have the same fundamental issues as mentioned in other post.
For reference sake, I would mention just a few:
- Customer service experience.
- Look & feel of the site with respect to page alignment and information available to on-line shoppers.
- On-line brand presentation.
- Image resolutions.
By that I can conclude the Nigerian e-commerce market is nearly of age and will compete with any e-commerce site elsewhere in the world. Aside for the fact that the technology is everywhere with the use of prototype template to easy design and implementation, I believe every business should be creative enough to birth something bespoke to suit the Nigerian market and the Nigerian people.
If you think you need a site to be reviewed you can drop a message and I would do just that.
Thanks for reading.
