Nigeria’s tax policy has been reviewed and updated and the sales rate in Nigeria stands at 7.50 percent. VAT moving from 5% to a statutory 7.5 that kickstarted from 1st of February 2020 stated by the federal government. This has affected the e-commerce sector a lot. The Nigerian e-commerce sector was estimated to be worth US$13 billion in 2018. However, economic stagnation in the country has been slowing down internet retail, according to Euromonitor international Still, the sector has been growing in popularity among Nigerians, making the country a leading hub for e-commerce in Africa. However, since in the 21st century many persons, conglomerates are coming online e-commerce will become inevitable for all which is a revenue advantage for the sector.
Some of the factors which will differentiate B2C from B2B e-commerce in the near future are:
* Impulsive purchases vs rational buying
* Pre-payments vs credit payments
* Lower Transaction values of items vs higher value transactions
* Single decision-makers vs multiple decision-makers
* Single delivery vs multiple deliveries over a fixed period
* Single price vs auction price/derivative prices
Some of the major drivers propelling B2B e-commerce growth in Nigeria are the increased usage of mobile platforms which are providing app-based solutions for customers’ problems, development of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning algorithms to identify buyer behavior and segmentation of categories, and lastly, social media marketing and analytics which are driving user traffic and increasing user penetration across different market segments.
Categories that will drive the B2B segment the most are consumer durables, mobile accessories, apparel, home furnishings, and healthcare. As of December 2017, Nigeria had a population of 195.88 million people, of which 98.39 million were Internet users, placing the penetration rate at 50.2 %, according to Internet Live Stats. Mobile phone penetration reached 84% in 2017, with 21 million smartphones in the country (The Guardian). Smartphone adoption can be attributed to cheaper phones on the market, improving the mobile network ecosystem, and access to light mobile applications such as Opera mini that consume less data, according to( Business Insider). With the intention of expanding internet penetration rates in the country, Google launched ‘Google Station’ in 2018, a service that provides free public Wi-Fi in several locations across Nigeria. As of July 2018, the most popular browser was Opera, which controlled 40.16% of browser market share, followed by Chrome (37.19%), UC Browser (9.33%), Firefox (4.79%), Safari (3.02%), and Android (1.57%). During that same period, Google was the most popular search engine, with a market share of 96.41%, followed by Bing (1.99%) and Yahoo (1.13%) (Import and Export Society)
APPROACHES TO B2B FOR 2020
1. Centered Strategic focus and brand marketing
In past years, B2B marketing has experienced a great specific of change, largely brought on by evolving customer demands. Together with an explosion of new methods and schemes, tools, channels, and technology. As B2B firms get strategic on brand marketing headways will be met for income. Too much of a good thing can be a bad thing (or at least an ineffective thing) and many marketers have quickly found themselves overwhelmed and in a chaotic cycle of trying to do too much. As the dust begins to settle, B2B marketers are starting to tap the brakes and evaluate their marketing activities, looking to understand where to focus their time, energy and resources.
In 2020, B2B marketers will shift from thinking about what they can be doing towards what they should (and shouldn’t) be doing. This will ultimately lead to less breadth in marketing activities, and more depth—narrowing the focus on what is most likely to drive bottom-line results. This means B2B marketers will be more concerned with actionable insights into their marketing activities and less interested in traditional vanity metrics. MarTech tools will be consolidated, as firms look for better integration and less waste. Lean principles such as iteration, testing, and continuous improvement will become more of an emphasis. As more firms realize marketing’s value and untapped potential for greater contribution to bottom-line success, B2B marketers are looking to deliver, and strategic focus will be key.
2. The convergence of experience and Technical Know-how
One of the important entities in any business is the customers. They actually decide what goes that is why there’s a saying ‘ Customers are always right’ The customer experience has emerged as the key to creating genuine differentiation and sustained competitive advantage in the “age of the customer.” B2B firms should now recognize that to win in business requires a truly customer-centric approach. But creating an unrivaled customer experience. It doesn’t happen in a vacuum! In fact, firms are starting to understand that the other employee experience and brand experience are all part of the customer experience equation. Experiences of users will serve as a good propeller that will serve as extrinsic motivation to customers to come back to the platform for business. B2B in 2020 has to realize the fact that the B2C’s are now leveraging to doing what the B2B’s are not. It’s not a competition by the way but what this will do is to actually make customers tint more to B2C.
3. Greater emphasis on websites and website optimization
Standards have to be taken as a greater priority on the website building; based on the fact that the presentation of all that a B2B has to offer to the market is all encapsulated in what the website pops up. And with so much emphasis on recent trends such as content marketing, client experience, and account-based marketing, many B2B firms have inadvertently deemphasized their most valuable marketing asset their website! But times have changed and today’s B2B websites should serve as platforms for differentiation, thought leadership, business development, and talent acquisition—while also delivering remarkable user experience. To better capitalize on growth opportunities, B2B websites will experience a renaissance of sorts in 2020, becoming more central to the marketing strategy as the hub of marketing activity.
Today’s B2B websites should serve as platforms for differentiation, thought leadership, business development, and talent acquisition—while also delivering remarkable user experience.
What will this website renaissance look like? For starters, many firms will approach website redesigns and updates much differently than they have in the past by emphasizing audience centricity through planning, designing and building around the user—not the firm. This mindset will influence everything from content strategy to site architecture and user interface design. Other website optimization efforts will include lead generation, search engine, and page speed optimization, mobile-first design, advanced security hardening, ADA compliance, and data privacy law compliance. This emphasis on the B2B website and the desire for a much more sophisticated overall website experience will increase budgets and resources for website initiatives in 2020.
4. Online Reputation Management: With the proliferation of the Internet, online reviews should become a responsibility for all B2B firms seeing that customers get to know what they are doing more online. Therefore there has to be strategic monitoring to the firm’s online presence be it on the social media handles, websites and all available means on the internet. B2B firms should start prioritizing the online reputation for greater revenue in 2020 which will include SEO, fresh contents and social media overshadows.
5. More interactive, video and visual contents: As a B2B platform founded online, there has to be innovative content in dimensions be it in words or videos. It has been proven that persons would remember with precision what they see and ear over time. As a business person, all that you want to consider are strategies to be creative in everything that will be on your website via the internet.
According to research from digital commerce 360, 80% of manufacturers will increase spending on their B2B e-commerce operations and 38% will increase spending by 25% or more. This promises plenty for the B2B e-commerce space and its most active players.
Digitization in the supply chain ecosystem, especially with regard to traders, wholesalers, dealers, retailers, and consumers using apps and other platform-driven methods hold the key to stickiness and growth in the space. Adoption will not be imminent, but since the whole supply chain is technology-driven, Over the next 3-5 years, digital app platforms are going to seamlessly manage market inventory in this segment. They currently use secondary and tertiary supply chain digitization in the FMCG segment, but this will soon change.
Technology is helping manufacturers by introducing products into the market within a short span of time, compared to traditional markets in the past. Secondly, high-quality no-name brands are becoming brands overnight and challenging the status quo and demanding market share and customer recall. Demand generation is now changing and the cycles of consumption are shorter; so inventory needed by sellers is reducing, just in time manufacturing is also on the rise because the cost of logistics is going down. All this implies that logistics continues to be a driving factor for pricing. Lastly, credit leveraging will continue to drive volume for the market, even as the face of B2B e-commerce as we know it undergoes a major transformation.
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