Supermartng.com is an online grocery store that was launched in Lagos recently by Raphael Afaedor and Gboalahan Fagbure. The duo were behind the creation and success of Nigeria’s online retailer, Jumia.com. In this interview with JONAH NWOKPOKU, they share the story of their journey to creating a unique online shopping model that addresses the challenges of delivery and payment systems. They also shared their experience on success strategies for tech startups. Excerpts

About three months ago, the two of you left Jumia.com which you co-founded, and now you have created another online store. Can you share the story of your journey to this online store, how it works, the model and what makes it different from what you have done at Jumia.com?

Fagbure: Supermartng.com is an online grocery service based in Lagos. It’s a unique model where you can order over twenty thousand grocery items. These include items like fresh meat, vegetables, milk, rice, wine, sugar, etc. They are basically most of the items you can find in a supermarket. Currently we are partnering with Park ‘n’ Shop and SPAR and then we are able to deliver these items to our customers across Lagos state. Our focus primarily is on grocery items that you can find in supermarkets. At the moment we are partnering with these two stores but as we move on, we will partner with more stores for wider assortments but still within grocery.

Afaedor: Over the last two years of building Jumia, we came to see how much value we can add by creating a service like Supermart that enables people to shop more conveniently for basic groceries and every day essentials that they need. A Lagosian has to battle with massive traffic jams in order to get from one place to the other.

To do their grocery shopping they have to spend three to four hours hopping from one shop to the other. And they could get stuck in traffic, and on getting to the shop, they spend at least 20 to 30 minutes looking for parking space and spend about another 30 minutes at the shop waiting to pay. All these are inconveniences. We know we can actually solve some part of this problem using the internet.

Another point of differentiation is the fact that the traditional e-commerce market delivers within a week on the average. At Supermart, we deliver within three hours. Delivering very fast is important to us because at the end of the day, if someone wants water to drink, he will not want wait for a week. So we leveraged on the know-how that we acquired over the last two years to set up this service that will be able to deliver within such short timeframe, providing convenience to the people and saving them time.

With the complex traffic situation in Lagos city, how do you intend to achieve this delivery timeframe?

Afaedor: We are lucky to have the experience we have acquired over the last two years delivering goods to customers. We used all the lessons learnt to engineer the operations such that we are able to deliver within such a short time frame. This a crucial part of the service we are providing. We use well-structured partners Park ‘n’ Shop and SPAR, which helps us keep our delivery promise

Fagbure: Another unique feature of the site, www.supermartng.com, is that for the first time in Nigeria, a customer can select when he would receive his goods. They would have to choose their delivery time. For example, for us we deliver seven days a week, Mondays to Sundays. Nobody else does that. And we deliver in three slots, you can place your order and we deliver between,  12-3pm, 3-6pm and 6 – 9pm. And that includes weekends. This is because, in traditional retails, you open as long as your customers want you to be open. We have brought some of those offline strategies into this online model.

Afaedor: This delivery window is an important feature of our model. The customers know exactly when we are bringing their products to them. And this is very important because the customer is free to go about their business without having to wait at home expectantly for days. You will tell us, 6-9 pm on Tuesday bring my product to me. And we will knock on your door exactly within that delivery window.

Fagbure: Right now what we have launched is to cover the areas where we are in. And that is Ikoyi, VI, Lekki, Marina and Lagos Island. That is the initial regions but very soon we will expand to other parts of Lagos. We can’t say we are expanding today or tomorrow because we have to approach it with cautious optimism because we need to stabilize our operations and get the necessary feedbacks from customers that will help us to determine what we need to do better in other locations that we are moving into before we begin to talk of operational expansion.

Does this uniqueness of your model extend to payment system?

Fagbure: Yes. Our payment system is unique in several ways. First is the creation of an e-wallet system. For instance, if for any reason, an item is available on our website and between the times you place an order and the time we get to shop, the item is no longer available at the physical shop, we have provided an option where we can replace an item with a close substitute or store that money in your electronic wallet. This wallet system is where customers can store their discounts, balance, and rebates. This means that a customer can have money in his wallet for future purchases.

Afaedor: The e-wallet system is interesting because today if you pay online and you want to have your money refunded, it has to go through the channel that it came in and traditionally it will take two to five days for you to get your money back. So what we have done with the e-wallet is to put a structure in place that refunds your money to you instantly. This is because we understand that customers do not want their money to be stuck anywhere, not for hours let alone for days. They want to be able to use that money. So with the e-wallet, you have the money in your wallet instantly and you are able to shop again.

Lots of e-commerce startups come on board every year but within a short time, they bow to pressures of challenges and close shops. Given your experience in the industry, what must startups do, if they must survive in this business?

Fagbure: Some of us talk about this in the industry and we agree that first of all you need to understand that the same rules that apply to regular business applies to an e-commerce company whether you are a startup or not. I think sometimes some people get carried away by what they think is the sexiness of the business. You know it’s cool to say, ‘I have a website and I am a tech startup’ even if you are the only employee.

However, the truth remains you can still call it a business if you have a website and you have something to offer. But then the same rules apply. It is the same rules that apply to banking, telecommunications, internet café, street traders, supermarkets that also applies to tech firms. So get the business right. Monitor your cost, expenses. Make sure you are developing the business and offering services that people want and at the level that satisfy customers.

You must make sure you have the level of caliber of people doing the right things. The bottom line is to treat it the way you would any other business. But once you feel that different rules apply, you have missed. For instance you think you can come to the office by 10 ‘O Clock, have a drink at midday, you go for a three hour lunch, then very quickly you will realize that what you call a business is just a hobby that is putting a big hole in your pocket.

Afaedor: Actually what you call a business remains a hobby unless you have customers who are paying for your products. The second thing is that these customers have to come back. If they are coming back it means you are giving them good service and they will tell other people about you who will then become customers. A startup goes by the same rules that apply to the other businesses but it’s more fragile. So you have to be frugal and get paying customers very quickly and treat those paying customers in a way that makes them feel very appreciated so that they will keep coming back.