OLX Nigeria is a free online classifieds platform that provides options for Nigerian buyers and sellers to trade and connect. The parent company is global with over 123 million unique users across 107 countries. In Africa, the company is present in Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria. Lola Masha heads the Nigerian team and spoke to HumanIPO on how the company is bringing global scale to make a difference locally.
HumanIPO: Is OLX currently making returns on the massive investment made in Nigeria?
Masha: We are currently focused more on user acquisition right now; it’s an investment for us. We want to make sure we get the product perfectly right for Nigerian users. We want to make sure Nigerian users find OLX as a robust platform to engage daily. At a point when we feel we are ready for monetisation we will begin to do that.
The focus right now is growing the user base, raising awareness – making more people aware of OLX and to use the platform.
You currently have over 468,000 fans on Facebook, a large proportion of which you are actively engaging. Are you satisfied with the current level of awareness about OLX in Nigeria?
No I’m not because there is still a lot we can do. The average Lagos user might be aware of OLX, but users outside of Lagos are not fully aware of the platform. We still have a lot of work to do to evangelise the platform outside Lagos. Even within Lagos, we need to convert from just knowing the name OLX to understanding what OLX is all about.
Jumia and Konga really took far-reaching steps in overcoming the trust barrier that once limited online transactions in Nigeria. Knowing trust is key to the model of OLX, how soon do you see the barrier being completely removed?
We hope it happens as soon as possible, we are very anxious to have Nigerians embrace the platform. The e-commerce sites have done a fantastic job raising awareness and I think that benefits all the tech companies frankly.
However, there’s still the challenge to make sure you are able to differentiate your offering from what the e-commerce platforms offer and not create confusion in the marketplace. We want to continue to drive the awareness and at the same time ensure we create a unique selling point for OLX.
What is the geographical distribution of OLX users in Nigeria?
Most of our users are still coming from Lagos which is not a bad thing because Lagos’ population is 17 million out of Nigeria’s 170 million people. We still have a lot of work to do to evangelise and disseminate the message and to raise the level of awareness with users outside Lagos.
Lagos is the highest, followed by Abuja and followed Rivers State. Those are the three key areas where we get most of our users right now.
Do you have physical presence in Abuja and other regions apart from Lagos?
No we don’t, we are still a very small team but we plan to do a lot more work in regions outside Lagos very shortly.
How do you protect prospective buyers and prevent people from selling products they don’t have on OLX?
For every ad that is posted on OLX, it does not go live right away, we have a group of people that review and approve every single ad. They try to stop fraudulent users from posting items on OLX. However we know it’s not perfect, we know they can’t always get it right which is why we want to open up as many channels as possible for users to get back to us and give us feedback on the platform.
What do you want to achieve with the OLX Makes Me Happy campaign?
We intend to showcase individual users being successful on the platform. There’s a perception that OLX is only for techies. We want to show that everyday average users can be just as successful on OLX. That’s the primary purpose of that campaign.
What about the OLX Connect Radio Show?
It is to get feedback from our users; it’s to ensure we have a channel – a live (unscreened) radio show – where users can call us. If they want to complain they can complain, if they want to say a good thing, that’s fantastic as well. We really want to get a true pulse of what our users think of our platform. It’s not always easy to open up yourself because you might be embarrassed. But if it’s in the interest of ensuring our users have the best experience, we are willing to take that risk.
What are the available platforms from OLX in Nigeria?
OLX is available on website, mobile web and app on Google Play and iOS.
You have vast experience about the Nigerian market having previously worked with Google and now at OLX. What do you think an average Nigerian user desires in a product?
I think what an average Nigerian user cares about is to know that if things go wrong, there is a channel where they can voice their concerns. They want to know the company is taking customer service extremely seriously and they are available and around to provide the best support possible.
A lot of us can build a website, but the key differentiating factor is the company that truly provides the physical and human connection to users. Because frankly, the internet is a little bit remote – it’s in a cloud somewhere, and the company that is able to create that human connection will win.
