OyaNow is the leading provider of Convenience, Reliability, and Quality of Service to individuals and businesses across Nigeria.
On the OyaNow platform, users can order whatever they need from their favourite stores and see it delivered to their doorstep. There is no need to spend time in traffic driving to get food, medicine, etc. All users have to do is log on to the platform and find what they need.
The company’s founding vision is to become the sole business-to-consumer platform Nigerians will ever need. In seven years of operating, the company has withstood multiple economic challenges and bootstrapped its way into becoming the leading provider of Convenience, Reliability, and Quality of Service to individuals and businesses across Nigeria.
The success of OyaNow hasn’t been without its fair share of struggles. Logistics in Nigeria comes with a myriad of problems, but the platform has scaled through every challenge and is ready to share its success story with the world.
Logistics in Africa
Logistics is big business in Africa, particularly Nigeria, which is home to over 200 million people. In addition to the corporate giants shipping products and serving the B2B market, there is a thriving e-commerce market propped up mainly by food delivery. However, the past few years have brought both great opportunities and immense challenges for players in the industry.
In 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, people had to quarantine indoors, and this meant that a lot of people had to rely on delivery services. One silver lining from this was an increase in e-commerce users, especially users who wanted food delivered. Post-covid, the e-commerce market on the continent is still booming with nearly 400 million online shoppers in 2022 and 90.9 million e-commerce users in Nigeria alone. As of 2022, the online food delivery market in Nigeria was estimated to be worth $834.7 million.
Despite this huge market, profitability is a big challenge for many players in the food delivery landscape. Last year, two powerhouses in the Food industry—Bolt and Jumia—shut down their food delivery divisions in Nigeria. Both companies cited a need to streamline their services and focus on their more profitable segments. Despite making up 11% of Jumia’s Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) in 2023, with the total number of food sold reaching $64 million in value, Jumia Food was still not profitable.
E-commerce in Nigeria is bedevilled by many macroeconomic challenges and infrastructure constraints;
- Rising fuel costs and inflation rates increase the cost of operating daily and also affect delivery fees.
- Poor road networks and traffic congestion make delivery time-consuming and difficult which ruins customer relationships.
- Also, new players come into the market regularly and this creates a struggle for customers which leads companies to offer discounts and lower fees that eat into any potential profit.
Despite these challenges, OyaNow has found a road to profitability and has remained successful for seven years. The question now is, how have they managed to do this in a volatile market riddled with challenges?
The OyaNow Story
“In the world of business, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and OyaNow has been flattered more times than we can count. From competitors who tweak our name to those who mirror our business model, the copycats keep coming. But here’s the thing: you can copy our tactics, but you can’t replicate our spirit. Competitors have tried to imitate our success, offering financial packages to poach our riders and staff but they’ve missed the point. What sets us apart isn’t just our business model; it’s our soul—a soul rooted in the grit, resilience, and passion of young Nigerian entrepreneurs. Our success is not a fluke, it’s a formula. We focus on convenience, reliability, and unparalleled quality of service,” says Christabel Aigbogun, CEO of OyaNow.
OyaNow began as a social commerce platform, which is a fancy way of saying they started by taking orders via WhatsApp and phone calls under a tree in Abuja. Founded by a couple of young Nigerian entrepreneurs, OyaNow started with zero external funding and industry experience. What they lacked in resources, they made up for in tenacity and a deep understanding of the market’s needs.
The company did well in its early years as it tapped into an unsaturated market with the perfect product. During and post-COVID-19 when many big companies struggled to stay afloat, OyaNow took a strategic approach to continue to adjust to the average change in the economic landscape. The company realised that the unit economics of food delivery were not sustainable so they shifted their focus to a profit and loss (P&L) management system over simply burning capital in marketing. They prioritised customer satisfaction and perfected their platform to offer reliable, convenient, and good-quality services by partnering with high-end restaurants that also offer premium services. This approach has paid off in profitability and sustainable growth over the years.
In a market dominated by big players, OyaNow has bootstrapped its way to becoming a leading provider of Convenience, Reliability, and Quality of Service to individuals and businesses all over Nigeria. The platform has over 50,000 users, 500+ merchants, and locations in three major states; Lagos, Abuja, and Kano. Today, the platform receives 21,000 monthly orders and has had $3 million GMV since inception. It has also made $1.4m in revenue in seven years and they expect to make ₦400 million in revenue in 2024.
The Road Ahead: “We dey come”
OyaNow has also consolidated its marketplace into two main services; OyaNow which handles deliveries including food, drinks, errands, and more, and OyaConcierge, a personal assistant.
OyaConcierge acts as your personal assistant, connecting you with a network of vetted professionals for various household services, including handymen, car rentals, gas refills, laundry services, house cleaning, and much more. It was created to serve busy individuals who do not have the time to find, vet, and manage household service providers. The platform guarantees compliance with contractual obligations, ensuring deadlines and costs are met. OyaConcierge is currently operating in beta in Abuja and has over 1,000 active beta users.
As their slogan, “We dey come” (We are coming) suggests, OyaNow is only getting started. Other products in the pipeline include Oyatalk, OyaShop, and more. According to the company, market conditions will determine the launch of these products. In the meantime, customers can enjoy an efficient food delivery service while waiting for OyaConcierge to launch in the public market.
In a competitive market saturated with imitators, OyaNow stands as an undisputed pioneer due to its unwavering commitment to quality and innovation which has set a high bar. While others may try to replicate their model, OyaNow’s success lies not just in their business strategy but in their spirit—a spirit of resilience, innovation, and a commitment to serving their customers efficiently. The company hopes to continue building on this spirit to continue shaping the logistics and technology landscape in Africa in the coming years.
