NIPOST Set Up For e-Commerce Growth
Nigeria’s postal administration, NIPOST, declared today the appropriation of the creative worldwide tending to the framework – what3words. The move has seen Nigeria turn into the seventh nation all inclusive to utilize what3words, and the third in Africa. The framework is now being utilized for mail conveyances in Mongolia, Sint Maarten, and Côte d’Ivoire. It will benefit Africa’s biggest economy and the most crowded nation. It will better plan Nigeria for the anticipated web based business extension.
Barely 20% of Nigeria’s population gets mail at home. 79% of homes and organizations can’t get conveyances to their doorsteps, and the rest of the 1% gets their email utilizing one of the 478,000 P.O. boxes all through the nation. This is the result of the poor addressing system followed in Nigeria. A postcode framework exists; however, just 5% of mail gets appropriately tended to with the postcode, hampering the endeavours of NIPOST to enhance its nature of administration.
The Solution
By the next couple of years, NIPOST has targeted to boost doorstep service and delivery to 70%. And, by 2020, it will be 90% through Mail for Every House Initiative (MEHI). To achieve the goals in such a quick time, NIPOST has endorsed what3words. From now onwards every home and organization in Nigeria will have an accurate address. It will be easy to remember and further enhance the goals set up by NIPOST. For this, they have divided the map into 57 trillion, 3m x 3m squares. For example ///bracelets.hesitations.mutes refer to the exact 3m x 3m square at the entrance to the main post office in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja.
Currently, What3words is being used by many postal services, government agencies, various logistics companies, NGOs, emergency services and individuals. It is available in 14 different languages and much more coming soon. The main significance of such addressing system is that it gives the precise and most accurate address. It becomes easy to communicate. The system is freely accessible through mobile app and API integration. It has built-in error detection and correction function. It can work even when you don’t have an active data connection.
“We are very gratified to be collaborating with what3words as an addressing solution with the huge potential to unlock opportunities” said Barrister Bisi Adegbuyi, Nigeria’s Postmaster General. “Better addressing is a key to NIPOST’s agenda, which aims to transform, innovate, establish and deliver more services to more people all over the country”.
E-Commerce Potentials
There is a huge increase in the cross border e-commerce exchange in the country. Over 53,000 parcels were managed in 2016, which means approx. 200 per day. This is the 70% of what it was in 2014. This is all because almost 62% of Nigeria’s population is youth. They tend to use this service in their everyday life.
The e-commerce market is currently worth $12 billion, but there is still huge potential for growth. Nigerian e-commerce could be set to take off at an incredible scale with improvements to infrastructure and innovation around payment systems and a reliable addressing system.
“With a rapidly growing e-commerce ecosystem, Nigeria is a very exciting country to be working with,” said Chris Sheldrick, CEO and Co-founder of what3words. “Postal services have a critical role in building a strong economy and NIPOST are firmly focused on the future, and are taking steps to modernise and grow their capacity and range of services.”