Nigeria ranks 3rd in online mobile shopping

ABUJA—Nigerian is ranked third in mobile online shopping worldwide, a report by Paypal has said. PayPal is the most popular way Nigerians pay for cross-border online purchases and 55 percent of Nigerian cross-border shoppers have used the platform for purchases in the past 12 months. According to PayPal, the country’s consumers spent N128.1 billion in 2015 via online shopping, targeting N172 billion by the end of this year.

PayPal’s General Manager Africa and Israel, Efi Dahan, who commented on the shopping trend said:  “Nigerians are doing so wherever and whenever they want to, using their mobile devices as an essential shopping tool. “Nigerian online shoppers have realised that the world is their shopping mall when it comes to buying what they need and want. ‘’They are no longer limited to what they can buy domestically, and are confidently scouring the globe for great deals, more choice, high quality and premier brands,” According to the report, Nigeria is home to some of the keenest mobile shoppers on the African continent, and is also the third largest mobile commerce market in terms of incidence of mobile shoppers among the countries that participated in a recent research. With 72 percent of online consumers shopping on a smartphone in Nigeria, the country follows China (86 percent) and India (82 percent) in terms of incidence of shopping via smartphone. A large majority of consumers pick smartphones to shop online both when shopping cross-border and locally in Nigeria. In terms of the value of this spending, consumers estimate that mobile shopping accounts for 38 percent of their total online spend, and 36 percent of cross-border purchases. According to the forecasts, this trend is likely to continue.