By Charles Mgbolu
As unbelievable as it sounds, Kalahari.com.ng, an online retailing company in the country has announced that no fewer than 65 million Nigerians and counting now throng the online market; leaving offline product companies and crude IT clusters like the computer village not currently enlisted in emalls in the country on the brinks of what has been termed a ‘digital extinction’.

Aerial view of the Computer Village, Ikeja

Although the country yet remains in the midst of relatively poor internet penetration and the country head of Kalahari.com.ng, Mr. Samuel Abdulazeez agrees that e_commerce in the country is still at its infancy, he insists the industry is, however, set to grow at the rate at which the digital gap is closing, with the online retail platform extended by Kalahari.

In a splatter of statistics, Abdulazeez noted what he called ‘the encouraging signs’ as reports clearly state that Nigeria has a big population of 150 million people. Abdulazeez said: “Out of this number, I can tell you now that 64 or 65 percent are Internet users and 75 million people are mobile users. 13 million people are on face book and the number is growing phenomenally.”

He said that the emergent huge e_commerce industry in the country is building on the expected progress, stressing there is a current government intervention to make online payment more seamless and secured. It is a swiftly approaching phenomenon that is all but evitable.

This is trouble for non e enabled commerce communities, especially IT clusters like the computer village, which still tags on to a fast outdating routine of making a sale only after a potential customer had walked up to it’s front door .

Clearly, unfolding events in today’s e economics and market survey show a rising popularity in online mail orders and requests- the very core feature of e malls as opposed to  face to face, over the counter deals still evident in the country;  a fast dying trend that may soon be galloping speedily to extinction.

To industry experts and market observers, it is a most welcome sign but then to the throngs of half literates in the nation’s largest IT market, this calls for a swift intervention. Like all known computer and internet revolutions that had been witnessed in the past, this new phenomenon will not be able to be stopped; an onward march that would leave all who refuse to follow behind.

The only chance of survival is if traders in the market urgently restructure and re establish marketing activities on a whole new level to fit into this approaching setup which is evidently not too far away.

The Kalahari boss had said “When you look at it, you know there is hope that things are going to be looking up. Just few weeks ago, there were discussions between the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) on mobile platform for payment. When this is resolved, it’s going to boost the industry,” he enthused.

Abdulazeez had added that online transaction such as afforded by Kalahari.com.ng provides visitors to the site opportunity to access original products from all around the world. These products include DVDs, CDs, music, games, electronics of all types, gift items, and computers, among others at competitive prices.

“We negotiate good prices for people so much so that even traditional shops buy stock from our site and then sell.” he indicated.

The online platform provided by Kalahari.com.ng affords means of building the stock of books in the libraries of institutions and universities at the click of the mouse. This is because the Internet retailer denominates all purchases at its site in naira and thus removes the foreign exchange bottleneck.

In truth, observers agree that it would be nice to make purchases with IT vendors in the computer village without actually having to go there personally and face the living sea of humans that walk the length and breath of the market.

Only late last year, the director general of the Nigeria Information Technology Development Agency NITDA Professor Cleopas Angaye had announced that there were plans underway by the agency in collaboration with the Federal Government to transform the market into a formidable IT park. It is however worthy to note here that if transforming the place into an e market isn’t part of the plans then all their attempts would have as well been for nothing.