Tech’s role in bringing retailers online
With retailers forming part of the backbone of the Nigerian economy, as everyone is connected to them one way or the other, it is important the problems faced in this sector get reduced to the barest for significant economic growth.
Business to business (B2B) tech platforms are pulling their weight in bringing interventions to the challenges daily faced by retailers in the course of running their businesses.
More retail business owners are experiencing relief and growth through the technology measures put in place by these tech platforms.
In a recent interview with Global Business Report on AriseTV, Adewale Opaleye, CEO of Alerzo said the company started off by building an online central market for retailers where they have access to many products that they will naturally walk around the open markets or stores to get.
Not only do they operate a one-stop online store, where customers can order goods from using the USSD code or logging to their platform with their internet enabled phones, they also operate a swift delivery network for their customers without any charges attached.
“We own a lot of vehicles and that is very important because if you know these retailers they don’t own that capital to wait 24 hours for the products. So they mostly will want the products immediately because they need to sell them off and make some margins from selling the products to feed their families,” he stated.
Alerzo also helps its customers in monitoring their sales and expenses in addition to other aspects of digital payment to avert the risk of losing their money which retailers face when they move with physical cash to the open market for restocking.
“We also launched our bookkeeping software that allows retailers to manage their inventories. On top of that, we built a financial tool like the POS terminal that accepts digital payment from retailers.
“Right now Alerzo retailers can manage their transactions and businesses on our bookkeeping software. They can accept payment from our device called Alerzopay. On top of that they can order products they need from Alerzoshop platform.
“…We built our own logistics routing software that allows our drivers to walk around retail stores pretty quickly. It’s super easy for us to work with logistics companies that can bring in their vehicles onto our own platform and leverage on our infrastructure to grow their businesses as well,” Opaleye added.
