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Tag: Konga

  • Konga launches new payment solution

    Konga launches new payment solution

    As online shopping gains more momentum and in anticipation of increased patronage with Christmas season just round the corner, Konga.com, Nigeria’s largest online mall, has unveiled an innovative payment solution called KongaPay that will make shopping easier for both merchant and buyers while building more customer confidence.

    Introducing the new payment system to media men recently, at the Protea Hotel, Ikeja, Mr. JR Kanu, Associate Director,  Payment and Digital Goods at Konga.com, explained that the new payment system works in tandem with Nigerian banks to give customers full control of their money while transacting online. Mr. Kanu who led the team that launched KongaPay further stated that the payment solution has an escrow system that holds money paid for an order until the transaction is completed to the satisfaction of the customer.

    Explaining what prompted the introduction of KongaPay, he said it was mainly due to the challenges consumers were having, making payments and getting refunds after cancellations. “With KongaPay, even after making payment, a customer can cancel by pressing the cancel button and the payment is instantly refunded as long as the goods had not been shipped and not in the custody of the buyer. If they are in her custody, then she will get her refunds when the goods are back with the merchant.

    “Furthermore,” he added, “one notable thing about KongaPay is its simplicity and seamless integration with Nigerian banks. Not only have we eliminated the inconvenience of constantly pulling out a debit card or bank token to complete a transaction, we have also integrated refunds at the click of a button while maintaining the highest security standards.”

    Kanu explained that all KongaPay transactions require two keys for transaction verification. First is the 4-digit pin, a numeric password created at the point of registration. Like all passwords, this is private and should never be shared. Secondly, the bank sends a one-time-password (OTP) via SMS or email. This OTP is only sent to the customer’s registered mobile number, the mobile number used by the customer’s bank and the customers BVN. KongaPay allows anyone with a bank account and a registered mobile phone number to use the application without necessarily signing up for internet banking.

    Vice President Marketing, Konga.com, Gabriel Gab-Umoden, explained the significance of KongaPay to online shoppers. He stated that “KongaPay is set to be a game changer in terms of providing online shoppers a platform they can trust. This trust will be built on theguarantee of fast returns and refunds for orders paid for with KongaPay.”

    Speaking on Konga’s general strategy for satisfying customers, Gab-Umoden said, “We have discovered that if our value proposition is right, people will use our platform. This drives our commitment to always have the right mix of products, at the right prices, with excellent support services to complement our digital capacity.” As an added benefit, Gab-Umoden revealed that all items on Konga.com receive a 5% discount if paid for with KongaPay. For now, this discount continues indefinitely.

    KongaPay is the first non-banking platform in Nigeria to plug in to the Bank Verification Number (BVN).

    On what the online market place has done to address some of the challenges like late deliveries, receiving  wrong orders which some consumers experienced during last festive years, the Vice President Marketing assured customers that those challenges were being managed as the company has improved on its logistics and uncommitted merchants weeded out.

    “We have beefed up our logistics. Previously, we were taking about seven days to deliver goods to people outside the state but now it’s been reduced to about five days. Our customer service officers work 24/7. We are ready for the festive season,” he enthused confidently.

    Speaking to The Nation, he explained that from time to time seminars and training workshops are organised to educate merchants and delivery men on the need for good customer service, citing the recent Konga Sellers Summit held at Eko Hotels as an example.

    “Returns and refunds have significantly reduced and we are continuously working to find out even better ways of satisfying our customers.”

    Explaining further on how sellers on the Konga.com platform are disciplined and irresponsible ones weeded out, Olatomiwa Akande, Head, Public Relations and Brand Management, Konga.com, said that the platform displays the history of sellers and reviews from other shoppers who have interacted with the seller.

    “If a seller gets many bad reviews, the person will be suspended and sellers with good reviews will naturally attract buyers. Besides, buyers and intending ones can have direct chat and conversation with sellers and other buyers,” said Olatomiwa, adding that sellers that supply fake products to customers are automatically taken off the platform.

  • Konga.com force behind Infinix’s success

    Nigeria has been purported to be one of the fastest growing economies in the world and today foreign investors and businesses are increasingly focusing on Africa’s most populous country. One company that is forging a success story in Nigeria is leading Chinese smartphone manufacturers – Infinix mobility. What is interesting about the success model for this company is that it has been built on a long term partnership with Nigerian ecommerce company, Konga.com.

    Entering into Nigeria’s market, Infinix Mobility exclusively adopted Konga.com’s ecommerce platform for the introduction of its first flagship device, the Infinix Zero.  The unprecedented but very ingenious move saw Infinix enjoy record growth from Konga’s widespread reach and penetration across Nigeria. Konga capably rose to the task of building popularity and preference for the Infinix Zero with strategic marketing campaigns and support and within the first few weeks of the device launch, Konga.com recorded over 100,000 units of the devices sold.

    Since then, Infinix continues to reapply this winning model, retaining Konga as its exclusive partner for the launch of their devices. According to Bruno Li, Country Manager for Infinix Nigeria, “With the heights we seek to take the Infinix brand to in Nigeria, it was clear that Konga is one company that would get us there”. In November 2014, Infinix launched another device on Konga.com; Infinix Hot X507. Unsurprisingly, the outstanding success was replicated. Today, on the back of innovative marketing and positioning led by Konga.com, Infinix has now grown to be one of the top selling mobile devices in Nigeria.

    According to Konga’s Marketing Vice President, Gabriel Gab-Umoden; “Konga is happy to be a part of this incredible success story. We bring to the fore the importance of local content in reaching customers. Our marketing and sales strategy is predicated on Konga’s deep understanding of the Nigerian consumers and the best ways to reach them with the right value proposition in terms of competitive pricing and with excellent service delivery. We also commend Infinix for delivering top value in the mobile phone category. They have been instrumental in driving up smartphone and android penetration up in just a few months”.

    Konga’s successes with introducing and building brands is pretty extensive. Some other brands in Nigeria today that are very well known and respected in the Nigerian market following joint launches with Konga.com include Polystar, Lenovo, BlackBerry, Huawei, Gionee, Fly, Skyworth, Saisho.

    According to Infinix Country Manager Mr. Li, “Infinix is set to launch the highly anticipated Infinix Zero 2 phone on Konga, this May”. Click here to be one of the first to own the device exclusive to Konga.com.

     

    • Akande, a Media Communications Expert, wrote from Lagos

     

  • Konga excites customers

    Konga excites customers

    In a bid to satisfy the needs of customers across Nigeria as well as ease their online shopping experience, Konga, Nigeria’s largest online mall, recently launched a new campaign called ‘FoundOnKonga’ to flaunt the over one hundred and fifty thousand products in its stock and demonstrate its claim of having the largest pool of products in the online mall segment in Nigeria.

    The ‘FoundonKonga’ campaign enriches the lifestyle of shoppers and makes their dreams of finding any item they need on the site come through, irrespective of the uncommonness of the item.

    Gabriel Gab-Umoden, Konga’sVice-President, Marketing, informed that the campaign is to show young aspirational Nigerians that everything they need to live their dream lifestyle could be ‘FoundonKonga’, no matter how uncommon the item is.

    According to him: “The objective of the campaign is to get the fans of Konga and the general public to embrace the ease that comes with shopping on a platform that gives them access to everything they need to achieve their dreams and live their dream lifestyle.”

    As part of the campaign, the celebrity ambassadors, Don Jazzy and Tiwa Savage, have already started generating some social media buzz, with tweets and posts about the interesting and amazing things they have ‘FoundonKonga’, and recruiting their fans into the fun movement. Just a few days into the campaign, FoundonKonga has been a number one twitter trend in Nigeria.

    Olatomiwa Akande, Head PR & Brand Management for Konga, said: “The campaign is designed to create a community of shoppers who would prefer a one-stop online mall for everything they need to going the extra mile in sourcing the various items they need from multiple online sites.  It goes to exemplify to our customers that with Konga, you can find just any item you desire.”

  • Konga excites customers with ‘Found on Konga’ campaign

    TO satisfy customers as well as ease their online shopping experience, Konga, Nigeria’s largest online mall, has launched a new campaign called #FoundOnKonga to flaunt the over 150,000 products in its stock and demonstrate its claim of having the largest pool of products in the online mall segment in Nigeria.

    The campaign enriches the lifestyle of shoppers and makes their dreams of finding any item they need on the site come through, irrespective of the uncommonness of the item.

    Gabriel Gab-Umoden, Konga’s Vice-President, Marketing, informed that the campaign is to show young aspirational Nigerians that everything they need to live their dream lifestyle could be ‘Found on Konga’, no matter how uncommon the item is.

    According to him: “The objective of the campaign is to get the fans of Konga and the general public to embrace the ease that comes with shopping on a platform that gives them access to everything they need to achieve their dreams and live their dream lifestyle.”

    Gab-Umoden informed that a lot of Konga’s customers are already identifying with the campaign as Don Jazzy and Tiwa Savage, two of Nigeria’s biggest artistes recently signed by Konga as ambassadors for the online mall, are at the forefront of the campaign and will appear in all the ‘Found on Konga’ communication materials scheduled to be launched soon.

    As part of the campaign, the celebrity ambassadors, Don Jazzy and Tiwa Savage have started generating some social media buzz, with tweets and posts about the interesting and amazing things they have ‘Found on Konga’, and recruiting their fans into the fun movement. Just a few days into the campaign, #FoundonKonga has been a number one twitter trend in Nigeria.

    Head PR and Brand Management for Konga, Olatomiwa Akande, said: “The campaign is designed to create a community of shoppers who would prefer a one-stop online mall for everything they need to going the extra mile in sourcing the various items they need from multiple online sites.  It goes to exemplify to our customers that with Konga, you can find just any item you desire.”

  • Konga announces fashion sale for Valentine

    Konga announces fashion sale for Valentine

    Valentine’s Day is around the corner; it is a day several people are eagerly looking forward to.

    However, the world renowned day of love also accounts for an enormous portion of the money spent on gifts every year.

    In the United States, it is extimated that shoppers would spend as much as $19billion on Val’s day gifts this year, at an average of $142 per person (that is about N27, 000). Some people estimate that Nigeria alone  may spend about N350 million on gifts for Val’s day this year.

    As this season of love approaches, Nigeria’s Largest Online Mall, Konga.com has announced that in celebration of Valentine’s Day it would be delighting its customers across Nigeria with a special Fashion Sale called Konga ‘Love Boom’.

    The Konga ‘Love Boom’ Sales was opened yesterday, February 5, with massive discounts of up to 50 per cent on top fashion labels on the online store.Several brands are included in the sale from both the male and female fashion stores. Some of the participating brands include Dainty Sole, Spotted, 24/7, Qupid, Le Rouge, Quest, among others.

    According to Konga.com’s Head of Public Relations, Olatomiwa Akande, “Valentine’s Day is all about love, and at Konga.com we know how much the Nigerian shopper loves to be able to get the trendiest fashion items and styles at a great price. And with the Konga ‘Love Boom’ Sales, we want our customers to let go of their Valentine budget worries and feel free to express how much they love the special people in their lives.

    The online retail company has other packages up for grabs in its 2015 Valentine Store, from romantic getaways to fashion discounts and much more.

  •  Konga emerges most visited site

    Online mall, Konga.com has been ranked as the most visited website in Nigeria in the latest Alexa rankings. This puts Konga.com ahead of the widely read Nairaland forum and other ecommerce players in the country today.

    Konga is ranking at number eight Alexa.com and number 7 on Similarweb. The only companies ahead of Konga in the rankings are international websites and social media companies such as Google, Facebook and Twitter.

    The recent data on Alexa and similarweb shows that engagement and time spent on Konga.com is 50 per cent more than that of its closest ecommerce competitors. Konga also appears to enjoy more time spent on the site by customers with lower bounce rates.

    This is coming on the heels of the company’s disclosure that it enjoyed very successful business results in the year 2014, on the heels of strategic choices by the company’s leadership team.

    Speaking on the ranking, PR Head for Konga, Olatomiwa Akande, enthused that the e-retail site is on the way to realising its mission of being the engine of trade and commerce in Africa.

    “We are meeting the daily needs of more and more Nigerians from our array of affordable products.” Akande, reiterated the company’s commitment to continuous improvement of the online commerce platform and  to supp ort the sellers on the site.

    She expressed the company’s pleasure at the volume and variety of high quality traded on the platform. “With over 150,000 items available to customers, Konga has now become a one stop shop for meeting the fashion, gadget and household needs for Nigerian.” she said.

  • Konga set for more African markets

    Having  closed  2014  with remarkable successes, Konga is looking to expand to other countries in Africa this year.

    According to its Head of Public Relations, Olatomiwa Akande, Konga started last year with a renewed focus on satisfying customers. A highly lauded feature by Konga was the launch of its own logistics unit called KExpress.

    Today, KExpress boasts a fleet of over 200 vehicles in less than five months that has greatly enhanced Konga’s order fulfillment to customers all across Nigeria; this is in addition to Konga’s partnerships with other third party courier companies across Nigeria.

    With the expansion of the website through its Marketplace platform, SellerHQ, Konga provided customers with a wider product offering and the added advantage of even more competitive pricing. With this, it now has over 150,000 products for its customers to choose from. Today, almost 10,000 sellers are registered and are actively advertising and trading on Konga.com.

    The highly talked about Yakata Sales in November delivered a record breaking N600 million in sales and closed at a 1,440 per cent sales increase compared to its 2013 edition. Konga sold 500 per cent more items in the two days of Yakata sales than it did in all of 2012.

    Over 40% of the people who shopped during Yakata had never made an online purchase before. With a significant part of Konga’s orders generated from mobile devices, this is a clear pointer that mobile is the way Nigerians will shop online in the future.

    The company now boasts of over 700 employees. It prides itself as an equal opportunity company with females making more than half of its staff population.

    Konga opened its engineering center with a mixed team of seasoned & young, passionate engineers. The company also launched hubs in South Africa and China.

    Konga also launched an Online Seller Academy for e-Commerce. With this novel initiative, Konga is committed to provide its online sellers’ community free self-service learning and training tips, allowing merchants achieve exceptional sales results through their online stores.

    Today the company has over 1.2 million fans on Facebook and more than seventy-five thousand followers on twitter.

    Konga received several prestigious awards and recognition in the course of the year. And in just two and half years, Konga appears to have run straight from the cradle, and is blazing the ecommerce trail in Nigeria today.

     

     

  • Konga blazes trail in e-commerce

    Konga blazes trail in e-commerce

    When Michael Aldrich created the first online shopping mall in 1979, little did he know that he was about to create a brand new sector of business that will one day, metamorphosed into a global phenomenon of easy and convenient shopping.

    This sterling effort paved way for the popular global online shopping malls like Amazon, eBay, Alibaba, AliExpress, among others.

     In Nigeria, e-commerce ran straight from the cradle, and blazing the trail is Konga.com, an online shopping mail, owned and managed by Sim Shagaya, a Nigerian entrepreneur. It leads other online malls in delivering efficient services to the growing population of online shoppers.

    Nigeria had inkling into the depth of e-commerce in the country last November when Konga.com held a sales promotion for its customers.

    The promo tagged: ‘Yakata Sales’ the online mall sold various items at give-away prices. Yakata Sales promo is Konga.com’s version on the global ‘Black Friday Sales’ that comes once a year. The mall extended this global phenomenon to two days to give its customers more time to take advantage of the prospects of savings that come with the Black Friday sales.

    The Yakata Sales promo offered up to 70 per cent savings on select items. Some of the hottest deals available on the site during the period included the Haier Thermocool 3KVA remote control generator which sold at about N49,000 at a discount of almost 60 percent; and the Lenovo A3300 tablet which sold at N17,000 instead of N28,000.

    During the sales, Konga.com said it recorded sales of more than N600 million while delivering revenue in excess of N200 million for its merchants daily. It was processing sales in excess of N50 million per hour during the peak periods of the two days of the sales promo. This year’s Yakata Sales registered a record-breaking 1,440 per cent year on year increase in online revenue over its 2013 edition.

    Also Konga sold 500 per cent more items in the two days of Yakata sales than it did in all of 2012.

    This feat was remarkable in the light of the infrastructural and operational challenges that face a lot of online malls in Nigeria today and the fact that the company was founded less than three years ago.

    Shagaya, said, “We received thousands of orders within the first few hours of launching Yakata Sales. The orders poured in from virtually every state in Nigeria and interestingly from several other countries as well. Unlike our closest online retailer competitors in the Nigerian market, our website experienced no down-time during the Yakata Sales, despite the incredible number of concurrent visits to the site during that period.”

  • GT Bank, Jumia, Konga, others win first dotcom award

    GT Bank, Jumia, Konga and other online platforms from different sectors of the internet economy have won awards  in over 30 categories in the country’s economic landscape.

    The awards, which was organised by American Internet Business School in collaboration with Afrinet Business Solutions in Abuja was aimed at  honouring  people and organisations that have distinguished themselves in setting an admirable standard for the Nigeria online market growth; the movers and shakers of the Nigeria dotcom economy.

    Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of Afrinet Business Solutions, Dr. Ope Banwo, said: “We feel that one of the ways to develop internet business in Africa is to start to recognise people who are doing great in internet business. So we organised the first dot.com awards in Africa tagged the Nigeria dot.com awards.

    “The ceremony was designed to recognise the firms that have made great contributions to the growth of the Nigerian economy.”

    Linda Ikeji won the best entertainment and gossip blog, VoguePay won the best internet payment platform, GTB bank won the award for the best bank on the platform while the Lagos State government won the award for the Best use of Internet by State Government.

    VoguePay’s Director of Compliance and Marketing, Geoffrey Weli Wosu said: “This initiative is commendable and we are honoured to receive this recognition from Afrinet Business Solutions and American Internet Business School.”

    The Director of Administration and Management for VoguePay, Ojikutu Quam described the award won by the payment processor as a reflection of the company’s dedication to delivering immaculate service to its merchants; promising that next year will be more exciting as the firm prepares to break the barriers of payment processing. “We will bring even greater dimensions to making and receiving payments for goods and services online in Nigeria,” he stated.

  • Konga leads biggest online shopping day

    Konga.com has further cemented its position as Nigeria’s largest online mall as it  delivered Nigeria’s biggest online shopping day with its version of the Global Black Friday sales tagged ‘Yakata’-(a Nigerian colloquial term meaning “final” or “completely). Konga’s Yakata sales started on Thursday and ended by midnight on Black Friday giving shoppers more time to shop.

    Konga’s Yakata sales pioneered and localised the concept of Black Friday in the Nigerian ecommerce industry.

    The first edition held last year was a huge success. However, this year’s sales delivered even more outstanding results. On Friday, Konga.com saw a record breaking 1440 per cent year on year increase in online revenue.

    The Chief Executive Officer/founder of Konga.com, Mr. Sim Shagaya, said at its peak, Konga was processing N50 million worth of orders every hour and that it sold 500 per cent more items in the two days of Yakata than it did in 2012.

    The successes for Yakata came behind a lot of hard work on the part of Konga.com. Over the last, one year, the company made the strategic decision to invest heavily in technology and other operational infrastructure, a very different strategy from that of other Nigerian ecommerce companies who have focused more on advertising.

    The company focused on enhancing its website and other operating systems. Another key move by the company was the creation of its own logistics and delivery arm called KExpress which now ensures that the company can continue to efficiently deliver the growing number of orders it receives every day.

    Konga.com also opened up its marketplace to small and medium business owners in the course of the year. Today, Konga’s marketplace platform boasts of thousands of SME owners who have stores and are actively trading on the site. Konga’s SellerHQ has more than double the number of products available on the site of its closest competitor.

    The choices Konga.com has made in the past one year have clearly been the right ones, unlike its closest online retailer competitor; the Konga.com website experienced no down-time during the Yakata sales, despite the incredible number of concurrent visits to the site during that period. This year’s sales was record breaking for Konga across different metrics.

    According to Sim Shagaya, “We received thousands of orders within the first few hours of launching Yakata. The orders poured in from virtually every state in Nigeria and interestingly from several other countries as well. Following the Yakata sales, almost 100,000 items are being shipped all over Nigeria.

    Shagaya said: “Over 40 per cent of the people who shopped had never bought online before. With a significant part of Konga’s orders generated from mobile devices it shows that Ecommerce is really growing fast in Nigeria and it is a clear pointer that mobile is the way Nigerians will shop online in the future.

    Mr. Shagaya expressed his deep gratitude to all customers that took part in the Yakata Sales saying, “Because of our customers, Konga and many small and medium size retailers that sell on our platform witnessed sales volumes that were simply staggering. We, as a people, have made a great leap forward towards the development of e-commerce in Nigeria and larger Africa”.

    Some of the hottest deals recorded during the period were Haier Thermo cool 3KVA remote control generator which sold at a remarkable N53, 750 at a discount of almost 60 per cent; and the Lenovo A3300 Tablet which sold at N18, 000 instead of N30, 000.