The management of Naspers owners of OLX, an online marketplace has disclosed that the company’s decision to shut down its operation in Nigeria was taken to consolidate its business operations in the country, stating that it remains committed to its consumers who buy and sell on its platform.
According to report, about 100 workers of the company in Nigeria were formally informed of the decision on Tuesday through a notice of termination, which will commence in March, and will be followed by the management team in April.
The Public Relations and Communications Lead, OLX Nigeria, Uche Nwagboso said “We made a difficult but important decision in Nigeria to consolidate our operations between some of our offices internationally. Our marketplace will continue to operate here – uninterrupted – as it has since 2010, and we remain committed to the many people here who use our platform to buy and sell every month,” Nwagboso said.
She added, “We continue to be focused on constantly innovating to make sure that OLX remains the top classified platform in the country. Of course, we are committed to helping our affected colleagues during this transition and have already offered them meaningful financial and other support.
“As we’ve expressed to them directly, we are extremely grateful for their many significant contributions to OLX’s success.”
OLX joins a long list of e-commerce businesses who have wrapped up business in west and east Africa over the past two years after failing to break even. In 2015,Nigeria based Efritin.com closed down with then CEO Nils Hammer, citing high cost of data, poor internet penetration and adoption as well as economic woes of the country as the prevalent factors responsible for their exit from the Nigerian e-commerce market.
OLX, which launched in Nigeria in 2012, said it had more than three million sellers and buyers registered on its platform in 2015 and reported that items valued at N12.1tn were posted for sale on its website in 2016.
Wow, So Olx is gone like this…it is well
thanks for sharing!