Kaymu is the latest Nigerian ecommerce player to step into the physical world

Online marketplace Kaymu has officially announced the introduction of Kaymu Village, a move that is largely described as an offline effort aimed to attract those that are still skeptical about making transactions online.

“For a long time, customers who bought products through the Internet on Kaymu.com.ng could only complete their payments via bank transfers, cash on delivery and Kaymu Safepay. This prevented those Nigerian consumers who are not able to access the Internet from participating in online shopping and e-commerce. Currently Nigeria only counts about 67 million Internet users in a nation of over 180 million,” the company said in a statement.

Describing itself as Nigeria’s equivalent of eBay and Taobao, the company said its latest offline move will shake up the industry by allowing businesses set up and run by mums, students, families, and sole proprietors and their customers to take advantage of extra convenience and efficiency.

“Now, by expanding our reach, we’re using our expertise to make life easier — and selling smoother — for individuals without internet access too,” said Kaymu.

The Kaymu Village service is being piloted in Yaba area of Lagos – Nigeria’s version of Silicon Valley, at 60 Queen’s Street. The company added that the offline Kaymu village is specially designed for customers who can not complete the payments through the Internet or looking to interact with their community-based online marketplace in a safe environment.

“Kaymu village encourages local entrepreneurs to extend their business across Kaymu.com.ng by providing logistics, marketing support and e-commerce training. In order to attract local entrepreneurs, Kaymu Nigeria will offer solutions to those Kaymu Village marketers while Kaymu University will offer daily seminars where people will have the opportunity to learn how to sell online. In addition, Kaymu will launch special promotions on products sold by Kaymu entrepreneurs.”

Sefik Bagdadioglu, MD Kaymu said: “We’re leading the way in giving people convenience when they shop online, so it makes perfect sense to extend this for when they sell offline too. Our continued success is all about listening and responding to customers’ needs – and we know that they expect ever more convenience, choice and value. The Kaymu village further dissolves the lines between digital and traditional retail.”

In a recent interview with Ventureburn, Evangeline Wiles, former Managing Director of Kaymu Nigeria said people in Nigeria are now seeing a value in ecommerce.
“We are able to make money based on commission to our merchants and we do offer them unique propositions — it’s an opportunity for them to do ecommerce. We now have over 40 000 merchants on our platform because people see a value in what ecommerce is all about,” she said.