Quick Clicks And Scaling Businesses In Nigeria

Published 1 year ago
Romain Poirot-Lellig; image supplied
Romain Poirot-Lellig; image supplied

Using innovative delivery and payment solutions in Lagos and Abuja and raising $2 million recently for their new platform KwikStore, founders Romain Poirot-Lellig, Olivier Decrock and Yinka Olayanju aim to empower SMEs and merchants scale their businesses.

Logistics plays a pivotal role in moving goods and services in Africa’s most populous economy, Nigeria, with over 200 million inhabitants. Everything from meals, groceries, documents and packages relies on the intricate network of couriers who make the country move.

However, different government policies over the past three years have created major roadblocks for the logistics sector. For example, when the government decided to ban ride hailing in Lagos State, many startups pivoted to motorbike delivery only to face further challenges like extortion from local government and exorbitant taxes.

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In 2020, Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Communications and the Digital Economy released guidelines which increased the licensing fees for courier and logistics companies, further exacerbating the issue.

Kwik, a logistics company based in the country, knowing all too well the challenges in the motorbike delivery sector, in March this year, raised $2 million to upgrade its services from motorbike delivery to an e-commerce solution to help its growing African B2B customers sell online via their smartphones.

Founded by Romain Poirot-Lellig, Olivier Decrock and Yinka Olayanju, Kwik’s new platform, KwikStore, is looking to address the gap in the market by using technology to streamline some of the difficulties moving documents or packages in sometimes-chaotic environments like Lagos.

“We are an on-demand, last mile delivery service with the goal of providing speedy delivery services within Lagos and Abuja. KwikStore is a free e-commerce solution that enables businesses or individuals to establish online stores, with little or no technical knowledge, from their phones. Our solution is fully integrated with all major payment solutions in Nigeria,” says Poirot-Lellig.

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The company makes money by taking a percentage of the amount that customers pay for deliveries, and is also hoping that by introducing technology into the delivery business, it will empower SMEs and merchants to scale their business exponentially. The platform has over 100,000 businesses already signed up and using its delivery services.

“With the use of our innovative technology, you can check, track and even provide user feedback to clients, which in the long run builds trust,” adds Poirot-Lellig.