The commonsense Balogun Market approach to Efritin

Last year, at a minute past 1pm, and just two days after Nigerians relived the memories of the annulled June 12 general elections, a young Nigerian ‘Jesbu’ could not hide his bewilderment so he quickly went online, Nairaland to be specific, and he shared his experience with other Nairalanders.

He asked if anyone knew a site called Efritin.com, he further expressed his surprise by saying that he got a call from a representative of the website (probably a cold call) that he should consider advertising his products with them.

”….They said to combat scamming they would need my valid ID card and my business ID card. They would be coming to my office tomorrow being Monday, I said no problem. Please who knows about them?” he asked.”

About 30 minutes later, someone finally saved Jesbu from his nightmare when the new guy that bears Spiritfada said he had similar experience.

“Same thing happened to me. They came, took a snapshot of my driving license, and that’s all! I guess it’s a new site trying to promote goods of verified sellers.”

Several other Nigerians commented about their personal encounter with then unknown Efritin which was why when the company finally launched in August, it had already gotten several uniquely verified sellers that trust it and believes that the company’s strategy is in the best interest of Nigeria. But as I attempted to locate the company’s office in Lagos without the aid of Google Map, a different set of issues were on my mind – issues so strong that if not well managed could send the fresh graduates the companies recently employed back to the labour market; to the streets – probably few blocks away from Efritin’s office where jobless Nigerians are competing to help ‘big men’ in fine cars to submit documents to secure visas to God-knows-where.

So when I finally rode the lift and came face-to-face with Zakaria Hersi, the Managing Director of Efritin.com, the most important question on my mind was how the company plans to survive the harsh climate, highly competitive clime, and supersaturated ecosystem beleaguered with infrastructural and trust challenges – two things that aren’t as serious as they are in Nigeria in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Ghana – three countries where Efritin has been operating though under different names before expanding to Nigeria.

Verification edge

Hersi revealed they had to push the official launch date because they had to ensure things were in order in Nigeria before rolling out.

“We were attracted to Nigeria because of the market size, market potentials and internet penetration,” he said. He noted that while just a small fraction of online Nigerians are fraudulent, the Yahoo boys (and girls) have created a big issue for the rest. So Efritin had to do a thorough job on safety and they are achieving this verification.

He said: “We are the first marketplace platform that does physical verification and deliveries. We verify every seller on our site before they start selling. The process should take around 24 – 48 hours. We verify them with government issued IDs, save them in our database and allow them to post ads. Even when they post ads, we still review them to ensure they are of the right pricing and are in order. And finally it goes live on our site.”

By gaining the trust of Jebsu, Spiritfada and several other Nigerians online, Efritin was able to record some impressive results within the short period of its existence.

“We have had more than 750,000 verified ads come into our system, we have had more than 200,000 app installs, and we have verified more than 30,000 sellers on our platform. The sellers are located throughout Nigeria,” he said.

Basically, Efritin sells Everything – as long as it is legal so don’t expect to see used guns, love charms, dangerously freaky stuffs and decapitated human body parts on sale. In addition to the stringent requirements regarding what could be sold on Efritin, you will be required to take a photo of your legal means of identification (ID) and another photo of you holding the identification before you can sell anything online. One bad move and you could be arrested by policemen.

Verification does not end with just getting the details of the seller and goods; the company also protects buyers buy ensuring the right price is charged and the used goods are in best condition to avoid reported experiences of customers that bought fake products on similar marketplaces.

Profitability

While much needed, Efritin’s approach seems to be much more laborious and expensive. And with so many competitors playing in a uniquely difficult to monetize space, the next question is how will Efritin be profitable so that it can continue to survive in the Nigerian market?

“When we launched in Nigeria, we were focused on investing, building the brand and being able to build the actual service and quality. We are introducing new features on our site that are very innovative in its way that we are able to help sellers sell more on our site and give them a wider reach on our platform. Our type of platform is a whole ecosystem because we have delivery guys. Which means we are able to move into monetization later on with third-party ads – if you want to post your ad and you want it high up you can do it. There is a lot of ways we can monetize and we are actually going to move into that within a very short period,” Hersi said.

Another thing that would make it much easier for Nigerian tech companies such as Efritin to achieve profitability is massive infrastructural development – something that Hersi said Efritin will need to have very smooth operations in Nigeria.

“Infrastructure needs to improve drastically as much – and as soon – as possible. For us, we are doing as much as possible on a lower level. We went from zero people to 180 employees, a lot of them are young and vibrant, coming out of schools. We’re helping to invest in a lot of people on the team and hopefully they will move on to the next level in their lives; they will start creating more companies and more jobs but they still need the infrastructure to be able to do these.

An interesting observation I made at Efritin’s office were halls and meeting rooms named after popular Nigerian markets. They even have Quilox where Hersi said they have drinks once in a while. Probably monthly. He said having Balogun, Ladipo, and Berger markets in their office space is a true reflection of what Efritin is doing – digitizing Nigeria’s marketplace. But the offline Lagos markets are recording sharp decrease in the purchasing power of their customers as a result of the dynamics of global and local economies. Instead of this reflecting on sales on Efritin, Hersi said the platform is allowing Nigerians to be efficient managers of resources.

“The market is good for us as people are more prudent in what they buy and sell. People who want to make a little cash over can make use of our platform to be able to make some money to pay school fees and to take care of as many bills as possible,” he said.

Vision 2016

This year, Efritin will need to go beyond pitching verification as its strongest point since other marketplaces are also verifying buyers and sellers on their platform. But one area where Efritin still has the capacity to be uniquely relevant is its delivery service dubbed Efritin Delivers which is currently only available in Lagos where it is providing same day delivery for NGN500 payable by the seller. For sellers that select this option, Efritin will come to the seller to pick up the order and will deliver to the buyer.

In a market that has the likes of OLX and Mobofree striving to outspend each other, Efritin has Efritin Delivers which could be the key to unlocking profitability in the marketplace space which is why the company is perfecting it to make it efficient and flawless.

“We believe in doing things that are of best quality and that was why we initially focused on Lagos. We want to be able to handle operations in Lagos. We are not yet offering it in other cities because of interstate delivery headaches, and the existence of logistics firms who are able to do that well than us. We are not fully marketing the service yet,” he said.

As I made my way to the lift, I met a lady that just delivered food to the staff manning Efritin’s call center. She obviously wasn’t trained to be a cook and I believed she would readily stop selling food when she gets a dream job on the island. I asked what would happen to the kitchen utensils. Does she know she could sell them online and make some money to buy cloth to wear on her first day at work?

At the security post, I rummaged through my bag in frantic search for pen and I saw my old Nokia phone – the one I keep for emergency purposes. I realized I’ve not used it in the last couple of months – so also the two dust-laden but functioning Infinix smartphones that are under my television set. I realized I could sell them online and make money from it. The story is the same for you and everyone else. It appears to me that the market of used products is a very large one but the challenge is how to get it done properly.