E-commerce in Nigeria has not yet built momentum and in 2021 , just seven percent of all purchases were made online . Industry experts believe that the fear of fraud is hindering the uptake of e-commerce , which is slowing down business growth . Henry Olawale Owolabi , Country Manager for DPO Pay , explains how this issue can be addressed to encourage more people to shop online .

With Nigeria having the largest population in Africa and one of the youngest populations globally , the immediacy and convenience of online retail makes it appealing to this enormous potential market .

And , while seven percent of all purchases made in Nigeria in 2021 were made online , local experts believe this could be significantly higher .

“ Unfortunately , fraud is a large , complex and often organised problem in Nigeria , costing the local economy hundreds of millions of US dollars each year . This is hurting the growth of a promising e-commerce sector because players across the ecosystem are nervous about losing money – merchants because of the chargebacks they face , and shoppers are worried about sharing their card details in case they have their accounts compromised ,” explained Henry Olawale Owolabi , Country Manager for DPO Pay , one of the largest pan-African payment service providers .

According to a 2021 fraud report from the NIBSS , the incidents of overall fraud attempts in Nigeria between 2019 to 2020 increased by 187 %, with web accounting for 47 %, mobile 36 %, ATM terminals 9 % and POS terminals 7 %.

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