Facebook breaks the hearts of OLX and Jiji
As you read this, many Nigerian entrepreneurs are finalizing their business plans for ecommerce startups. We have the rights to those aspirations. There is nothing wrong in trying. But success in the broad ecommerce nexus would be extremely challenging.
As I noted few days ago, Facebook groups are now the second ecommerce ecosystems in Africa, after Jumia, based on data from Geopoll, a polling company. The social media empire is circling Africa. But it is not stopping there, as Facebook has launched Facebook Marketplace in South Africa.
From today for a select number of users, Facebook will boast a Marketplace icon in its navigation bar. Clicking it will take users to a page where they can browse goods, or put goods up for sale.
Yes, Facebook has a marketplace; the very business companies like OLX and Jiji depend upon. With nearly everyone on Facebook, these companies would have real challenges ahead to get people to get out of Facebook. After all, the same users OLX and Jiji target are the same people selling and buying on Facebook.
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Facebook would scale Marketplace across Africa in coming months. That would be bad for OLX which just introduced advertising in its ecosystems to make extra revenue. The future with Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram evolving into SME and business ecosystems could be devastating to African startups working in the ecommerce space.
You want to go there? I think European Union would likely ask Facebook to exit some sectors. Africa is another game. I think the ecommerce opportunities are already gone here.
