Would online merchants in Nigeria start accepting Paypal?

KoliTech

Posted by Felix Okoli on Monday July 7, 2014 at 16:58:1:

There are many online merchants in Nigeria and while some of them are into shopping, some are into providing services like flight bookings, entertainment, subscriptions and even hotel bookings.

One of the things that has kept bugging my mind since the launch of Paypal Nigeria was whether these online merchants would migrate to using Paypal as a means of payment. I was thinking which Nigerian websites would be the first to start accepting Paypal payments?

Internet merchants in Nigeria do accept a variety of payments of Nigerians who have chosen to purchase their products or services and some of these include payments like bank deposit, Debit cards, cash on delivery and so on. Cash delivery is my best option for now but I'm also willing to try out with Paypal.

Even though I've started using my Nigerian issued Visa and Mastercard for making online payments, I don't normally feel safe doing so but I feel safer when using an independent payment platform such as Paypal.

One benefit of using Paypal for online payment is that it helps keep your card details secure by allowing you to expose it only to Paypal once and then be able to make payments at multiple websites by just using that Paypal account. With a Paypal account, one needs to only expose his card details once and then be able to make payments many times without ever showing your card details again.

For people who normally shop online or make payments using a Visa or Mastercard, one is normally required to provide card details when trying to checkout and this is what makes it easier for your data to be compromised.

Paypal is a trusted brand and it helps to protect your bank and card details when you are making payment and it works like an electronic bank that allows one to make payments to merchants as long as they have a Paypal account.

So, one of the things I've been pondering on lately is if these Nigerian websites that sell stuff or offer services would actually adopt Paypal as a form of payment besides the forms of payment they are already using which could still be on the table.

As at the time of writing this post, it seems the most popular means of making local payments online in Nigeria is through interswitch and this normally requires the buyer having at least a debit card. Etranzact is also another platform as well as Visa and Mastercard. There is also the cash option either by a bank deposit or payment on delivery for tangible goods after purchase. Would they soon adopt Paypal even though they came late?

Well, I think it's going to take some time given that Paypal services have not been fully deployed in Nigeria yet. Although Paypal has officially opened it's doors to Nigeria, they don't yet allows Nigerians to receive payments yet but can only make payments. Nigerians may online be able to receive Payments online through Paypal for now if they have a foreign Paypal account and assets such as a US bank account.

I'm quite sure that online merchants in Nigeria who choose to sell with Paypal just to capture the Paypal Nigeria market but I wonder if it would be meaningful for them since Nigerians can already make payments online and having a foreign Paypal account might actually mean keeping their sales in foreign accounts which might be a risk to their business within Nigeria. Why would a local company in Nigeria allow Paypal to keep their funds in a foreign account when their business if fully operational in Nigeria? I guess that's one of the reasons why the Paypal option might not be so attractive to online merchants in Nigeria for now.

It would have been easier if Paypal Nigeria allowed merchants to receive payments online using a Nigerian bank account but for now, it is not so and I'm not sure if local companies in Nigeria would dump payment platforms already working for them and switch to Paypal.

However, if Nigerian online merchants don't start accepting Paypal payments from those Nigerians who have already subscribed to Paypal, they might be losing some share of the market especially to online shoppers in Nigeria who love to shop internationally.

Already, there are international websites across the world which are willing to ship to Nigeria and they accept both Nigerian issued cards as well as Paypal payments from Nigeria. Most of the items these global shopping websites offer for sale are really cheap and their websites have been designed to calculate total costs when shipping to Nigeria, a bit like what Aliexpress.com is doing but with an added option of accepting Paypal payments, even from Nigeria.

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Comments:

Re: Would online merchants in Nigeria start accepting Paypal? Reply by Felix Okoli on Friday September 5, 2014 at 9:25:4:

Update: Dobox has recently started accepting Paypal payments from Nigeria. They've integrated Paypal into their online payment platforms. I guess this is good news for Nigerians both home and abroad who might want to start paying for Dobox services from their Paypal accounts. This is the first online service provider in Nigeria that I've heard doing this. Others might gradually follow suit soon

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