Editor’s Note: Tito Philips, Jnr. is an unusual Nigerian who is passionate about rebuilding Nigeria through entrepreneurship. He is currently empowering entrepreneurs about starting up an e-commerce business in Nigeria. He blogs about business and entrepreneurship at naijapreneur.com
I wrote here about the rise of e-commerce in Nigeria and how you can profitably take part; you can consider this a follow-up article as I will be sharing with you my own experience of how I made close to a million naira within three months of owning a shop online.
How It All Began
I started by selling my business consulting and internet marketing services through my blog naijapreneur.com. Then in January 2013, I came across Kaymu.com.ng they were still trying to break their way into the Nigerian e-commerce terrain.
It didn’t take me long to see the market potentials of such a platform where sellers can be connected to over 60 million Nigerians online. I instantly became a Kaymu evangelist. This is partly due to my passion for entrepreneurship development in Nigeria and my successful experience withe-marketing.
My 1st Month Selling Online
I own a boutique business where I sell both male and female clothing and shoes. So I decided to create my own shop online to test run Kaymu and listed the shoes on the platform, this was in February (and if you are wondering why I listed only shoes and left out the clothes, well, shoes are far easier to snap than clothes.) Before the month ended, I was able to sell one shoe – despite five 5 orders, only one buyer followed through to pick up and paid N3,000 cash.
My 2nd Month Selling Online
Towards the end of February, I decided to expand my shop on Kaymu to sell in another promising category other than fashion, phones and tablets. Since I didn’t sell phones and tablets, this was made possible by one of my e-marketing clients who proposed a partnership – I help sell their phones and tablets online and earn commissions on every sale.
Because of this collaboration, in March I sold one Blackberry Z10, an iPad4 and a Tommy Hilfiger shoe for a total of N223,000. Not bad.
My 3rd Month Selling Online
April was the best month ever, all of the marketing initiatives where falling into place and people were becoming more confident in the brand due to the number of successful deliveries and safe transactions recorded. So in April, I sold 7 Smart phones and 5 male shoes for a total of N613,547!
Why It Pays To Sell Online
Besides the number one obvious reason – that you get to reach a whole lot more people through an online shop – the most significant reason for me is the 24/7 operational nature of an online shop. There’s practically no closing time online, you can be making sales while you sleep.
Reducing overhead costs is one other reason why selling online is so super smart. You don’t have to bother about shop space, on the internet there’s unlimited shelf space for unlimited items. I mean, I expanded from just selling male shoes to selling smart phones and tablets and it didn’t cost me additional rent.
My favorite reason: growing your brand has never been easier. Online, you connect with millions of people you may never have been able to sell to offline.
Over to you
You’ve read my story and as many naijapreneurs have come to know me for, I hardly share what I haven’t personally applied. My own approach to marketing is simple; “don’t tell people what you will do, show them what you’ve done. Why? Because results sell faster than words!”
If this isn’t sufficient prove that Nigeria is in the early days of a heavy e-commerce boom, then you can choose to ignore this article. But if you are among the few wise ones, you will get in now while many are still contemplating and begin to reap the rewards of selling online. Here’s an invitation, click here to start.
