Most Nigerian online shoppers ‘prefer cash on delivery payment’

Most Nigerian online shoppers prefer cash on delivery to online payments method, according to insights from a new e-commerce market trend report.

The report which was gathered from yStats’s report, states that while credit card is the payment method most used by online shoppers worldwide, in many emerging markets of the Middle East and Africa, cash on delivery is still more popular.

In 2015, cash on delivery payment method was used by more than 50% of online shoppers in Nigeria, the UAE and Saudi Arabia to pay for purchases made over the Internet, as revealed by the new report.

Another popular alternative to credit card payments in the Middle East and Africa is mobile payment. Low banking penetration and growing mobile phone penetration rates in Africa are driving the use of this innovative payment method.

A number of new mobile payment solutions were launched in Africa in 2015, including BlackBerry’s BBM and WeChat’s mobile wallet to rival local solutions such as MFS Africa and M-Pesa, which triggered the triple-digit growing rate of payment transactions with mobile phones in Nigeria

According to the finding cited in yStats’s report, mobile payments are also gaining pace in wealthier Middle Eastern states, with more than half of internet users surveyed in mid-2015 declaring their readiness to make payments via Smartphones.

Also in 2015, Kenya became the regional leader in mobile payments, with mobile payment users accounting for more than two third of the country’s population.

Nevertheless, there are a few exceptions to this trend, such as in South Africa, where the majority of online transactions were paid with credit or check card.

Also, in Morocco, the number and value of online payment transactions made with credit cards is growing rapidly, though cash on delivery still leads in usage.