African social marketplace MOBOfree has announced a 274% year-on-year increase in the total value of goods on their platform in Nigeria. The current value of goods is US$1.97 billion (NGN 394 billion), up from US$526 million (NGN 102.5 billion) last year.
The rapid growth has outperformed the forecasted figure for 2015 by 30% according to the online buying and selling platform.
MOBOfree attributes the increase in the value of goods to the safety of their platform, an increase in the number of repeat customers as well as to a renewed focus on the automotive and real estate categories of classified advertisements.
Cristobal Alonso, chief executive officer at MOBOfree, highlighted growing customer confidence among the more than four million registered users as one of the reasons behind the upward trend.
"Customers are going to the site because they are confident that buyers and sellers have been vetted. Once they experience the ease of use and added security, customers come back and use the site and are reassured on each occasion," said Alonso.
MOBOfree also pointed to its investments in safety and security with a recently launched ID verification programme in addition to a dedicated quality control team which manually reviews every single advert before launching it live.
"This increase is indicative of a growing number of Nigerian consumers willing to buy, sell and swap stuff with people they can trust...", added Alonso.
MOBOfree has hired local teams in Lagos to visit the largest car dealers and real estate agents in a bid to increase its numbers. The teams on the ground will help to increase the adverts on the platform and meet car dealers in person. They will also check the cars and take photographs of the cars themselves to ensure that car buyers on MOBOfree get access to trustworthy car classifieds according to the company.
MOBOfree says it has 500,000 active classifieds in Nigeria at present and five million personal messages are exchanged between buyers and sellers every month.
The social marketplace also has presence in Uganda and Zimbabwe.
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