If OPay wins intra-city logistics, it will be in a good position to win any ecommerce sub-sector it enters. Jiji and Jumia could be imperiled because logistics is Nigeria’s ecommerce weak point. Konga has a weak moat via its physical stores. Experts expect OPay to activate its ecommerce engines once it has finalized logistics dominance. All the elemental modules are already built up – and just being rolled out in phases.
I refer you to my piece in November 2017 on Opera, the parent of OPay. It now wants to become the “leading payment, ecommerce and other partners” by itself.
Opera’s strategy is brilliant for the firm, but it will put it in the crosshairs of many local companies. As more Africans use Opera, most local companies can experience erosion in their brands. Yet, it is also possible that Opera can move in the path of aggregation where it can make it easier to find leading payment, ecommerce and other partners through its browser. But no matter what happens, I do expect massive dislocation as Opera becomes a platform with commercial activities happening at the level of browser. It will be very interesting: Opera needs a business model to make money.
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It will be interesting and thrilling too, if Opay can win intra-city (and possibly inter-city) logistics space, and subsequently become the Operating System in the ecommerce logistics space.
I won’t consider it to be a threat to other ecommerce operators, all they need do is simply to pay tax to Opay and make use of its logistics infrastructure; they can still win on business models, product quality and customer experience.
In fact it will make other ecommerce operators more profitable, while transferring most of their risks and distribution costs to Opay.
Let’s see who really have the big heart to attack the logistics paralysis with swag…
“I won’t consider it to be a threat to other ecommerce operators, all they need do is simply to pay tax to Opay and make use of its logistics infrastructure; they can still win on business models, product quality and customer experience.” That would be interesting as that will enable OPay to reduce its product prices since those players may end up picking its logistics costs. I am not sure other ecommerce players can move the risks to OPay since this is still the logistics market (i.e. they matter and can make calls over ecommerce operators)