The viability and future of e-commerce on Phore Blockchain in Nigeria
As far as e-commerce is concerned in Nigeria Konga has made an indelible mark in this sector and considering the fact that this platform serves the most populated country in Africa with a massive consumer market having household consumption increase which far outpaces its gross domestic product (GDP) and seeing that it was acquired by the Zinox Group, there were a lot of concerns about the viability of e-commerce in the country.
This concerns given that these were the early days of e-commerce were gaining a lot of weight not just because the company was sold for far less than the amount of it’s supposed worth but also because this was still an unchartered territory in Nigeria at the time.
However the story is different today as this industry has recorded a remarkable increase over the years,
PoD as one of the early obstacles the e-commerce faced.
Payment on delivery amongst a number of other challenges happened to be one of the first and major issues that was experienced in this space as trust is one important factor that had not yet been established when the platform was coming up, so much that there was a noticeable decline in the purchases recorded when this was stopped. Being a developing country Nigeria happens to be amongst the few countries which have experienced the highest speed in e-commerce
If a twitter poll Carried out but jumia Nigeria last year is anything to go by, we could say that shoppers still prefer poD. And although poD might be appeared to be an indispensable part of the e-commerce sector in Nigeria this has since changed as there has been an increase in patronage on international e-commerce platforms such as AliExpress, Amazon and the likes in recent times. Even though we could say this sentiment is one-sided we could clearly see that it is cost-effective for the e-commerce platforms involved, but in recent times this has been seen to have experienced a lot of improvement just the way websites like Amazon have gained the trust of its users.
The viability and future of the industry
The narrative has already changed as the industry is in no doubt on a growing path. Although according to a report from 2018, it states that over half a decade since the e-commerce industry experienced a major boom, investors are still not on the winning side as profitability seems to remain a major challenge for the sector, as stated in a report in 2017 which revealed that Konga was just on its way to making substantial profits. Also in previous times, Jumia(which is also another e-commerce giant in the country) recorded a net loss of about $61m in a period of six months.
Integrating Phore blockchain into Nigerian e-commerce
Phore blockchain being a product of Blockchain technology which has begun to make waves in the world of finance has also been introduced into the world of e-commerce through the use of decentralised apps (Dapps) which work through a distributed ledger technology, the project seeks to provide a decentralised platform where buying and selling could take place seamlessly between merchants and buyers, this system which is powered by its native currency Phore would be a major addition to the industry in the country.
Features which further increases privacy of the use of the platform is the ability to buy items anonymously using zPHR which is Phore’s anonymous transaction feature, this is not to say that the platform is porous to illegal purchases as measures have already been put in place to curb those
In addition to the completely decentralized, peer to peer design of the marketplace which has no centralized servers, data servers or authority, cases of price manipulation of goods to take advantage of buyers is eliminated as the prices of items would be gradually standardized by the market itself this system would empower people within the country to trade products and services directly with each other possibilities of collaboration between already existing platforms such as Konga and Jumia and Phore blockchain are not far fetched and would go a long way in further expanding this sector in the country, we already know that blockchain is a disruptive technology that has come to change the conventional way of doing things generally and this is why the penetration of a solid cryptocurrency project such as Phore blockchain is not just very viable but stands a high chance of thriving if properly managed.
