E-Business
Micro Businesses Overcoming the Challenges of Doing Business in Rural Areas
Contrary to the erroneous belief in some quarters that doing business in rural areas is immune from the common challenges that businesses generally face, reality is that micro business owners in underserved areas also have peculiar challenges they go through.
Some of these challenges include difficulty in accessing goods on time.
Dearth of infrastructure such as good road network, long distance to the market and lack of adequate transportation system to move purchased goods are among the factors that constitute access barriers to goods and commodities.
As a result, many micro business owners spend longer time or wait for days and weeks to receive inventory or restock, while oftentimes they experience supply shortages. The delay or disruption in supply also affects the end-users/consumers, who are unable to purchase things they need as at when due.
Painfully, micro retailers lose sales, and ultimately money whenever they have stocks-out due to inefficient supply cycles.
However, the increasing impact of digital technology that is rapidly transforming every segment of our socio-economic ecosystem is also changing the narrative positively for businesses including retail trade.
The digitalisation of the economy, which is enabling e-commerce platforms in the B2C segment and lately the B2B segment, has had and continues to have great impact on the manufacturing, distribution and retail value chains.
With B2B e-commerce, tech-driven digital solutions including warehousing and logistics infrastructure and fulfilment solutions are making micro businesses more efficient and better organised in their day-to-day operations, especially those in the underserved remote or rural areas.
So, unlike the past years when micro business owners in underserved areas faced supply hurdles, most of them today can testify of better and faster access to goods and commodities due to B2B e-commerce revolution.
This positive development is not without the efforts of B2B e-commerce platforms like Alerzo whose strong presence in rural areas and commitment to the underserved micro businesses is boosting access to extensive catalogue of products and logistics.
Through SMS, WhatsApp, phone calls or log-in onto its site where applicable, customers now easily place orders and get the goods delivered swiftly without being charged for delivery.
Alerzo’s CEO, Adewale Opaleye stated, “Our strong presence in the South-West, and continued expansion to the North-West and Central consolidate our desire to grow in a sustainable manner and continue to serve those that are underserved.
“On our Alerzoshop retail app, we have a vast assortment available to our customers to choose from, and we offer free delivery in all the over 13 cities we’re currently operational. We change the landscape for them (retailers) through on time delivery.’’
Opaleye added that, ‘‘For the past two years, we have delivered to informal retailers at no cost. With our delivery services, retailers save time, energy, and resources that they would have otherwise expended in restocking. These benefits have resulted in 85% of our retailers reducing their two to four times a week restock trips to zero.”
As digital technology makes deeper impressions on more people, it is also anticipated that the rural communities would also open up. Hence, there is a bigger role e-commerce platforms will play in reaching the underserved in light of government’s focus on leveraging micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and digital economy as critical enablers of national economic growth.
As the engine of national economic growth, the MSMEs segment is reported to contribute 50 per cent to the Nigeria’s GDP and make up 80 per cent of the country’s total employment, while the informal retail segment is worth $100 billion. E-commerce platforms, in particular the B2B segment would ultimately be needed to bridge the potential supply-demand gap that could arise.
Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) is in Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and needs urgent reforms to revive it, according to Isaac Kekemeke, board chairman of the service.
Kekemeke, who spoke at a workshop organised for NIPOST staff in Abuja yesterday, added that it is now time to go the whole hog to reform and make NIPOST fulfill its destiny to compare and compete favourably with multinational postal agencies.
“The approach may not be palatable at all times but we need to take the tough but necessary decisions to exit the intensive care unit. We are either out of ICU in good health or head for the morgue. NIPOST either functions effectively now as a commercialised state operator or gets privatised, so that myself, the PMG, and a good number of you risk the loss of our jobs,” the chairman said.
No doubt, he added, “Change is not always easy as many loathe change because of the uncertainty it brings but it is in my place to urge you all to embrace the change we advocate.”
The Internet Society’s six-month Fellowship Peering program continues to help make internet access affordable, dependable, and resilient. The program, according to the global charitable organisation, is targeted for fifteen professionals in the peering and interconnection sector.
“It offers a unique opportunity to build the skills, knowledge, and networks necessary to improve local Internet infrastructure and policy,” according to the site’s description.
The fellowship participants will participate in a comprehensive curriculum that includes virtual training sessions, collaborative forums, and technical and advocacy-based instruction on routing, Internet Exchange Points, and policy.
The fellowship culminates in attendance at a global peering event, which provides direct experience and networking opportunities with important voices in the Internet community.
The fellowship enhances participants’ impact in their particular nations by developing engagement with seasoned professionals and boosting regional and global collaboration. The program invites fellows to return to their communities prepared to expand interconnectivity, improve policy conditions, and make a meaningful contribution to the development of the Internet ecosystem.
Applicants must have at least three years of Internet experience and be based in Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, or Asia-Pacific.
Eligibility also required proper travel documentation and availability to attend important events such as African Peering and Interconnection Forum, Latin American and Caribbean Network Operators Forum, or Peering Asia, as well as a commitment of roughly four hours per week over six months.
Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has called for the withdrawal of the amendment of the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 because it seeks to regulate the activities of bloggers operating within the territorial boundaries of Nigeria.
The organisation in its letter urged Mr Godswill Akpabio, Senate President, and Mr Tajudeen Abbas, Speaker of the House of Representatives, to “immediately withdraw the repressive bill.”
The titled A Bill for an Act to Amend the Nigeria Data Protection Act, 2023, to Mandate the Establishment of Physical Offices within the Territorial Boundaries of the Federal Republic of Nigeria by Social Media Platforms and for Related Matters among others intends to regulate bloggers, including by requiring all bloggers to register local offices and join recognised national association for bloggers.
Currently, the bill has passed its first and second reading in the Senate.
In the letter signed its deputy director, Mr Kolawole Oluwadare, SERAP asked Mr Akpabio and Mr Abbas “to ensure that any amendment to the Nigeria Data Protection Act promotes and protects the rights of bloggers and other journalists and does not undermine the fundamental human rights of Nigerians.”
It demanded an end to “the imposition of unnecessary restrictions on the rights of Nigerians online and Internet-based content.”
In the letter dated April 12, 2025, the group said, “This bill is a blatant attempt to bring back and fast-track the obnoxious and widely rejected social media bill by the back-door.”
“If passed, the bill would also be used to ban major social media platforms—including Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube, TikTok, and independent bloggers if they ‘continuously fail to establish/register and maintain physical offices in Nigeria for a period of 30 days.
“Lawmakers should not become arbiters of truth in the public and political domain. Regulating the activities of bloggers and forcing them to associate would have a significant chilling effect on freedom of expression and lead to censorship or restraint.
“Should the National Assembly and its leadership fail to withdraw the bill to regulate the activities of bloggers, and should any such bill be assented to by President Bola Tinubu, SERAP would consider appropriate legal action to challenge the legality of any such law and ensure it is never implemented in the public interest,” the organisation warned.
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