Equity Investment Needed in an E-Commerce Business with 35% ROI

Opportunity Snapshot

  • Country: Nigeria Nigeria
  • Industry: Retail Trade
  • Stage: Start-up
  • Investment size: $1,000,000 / min. $800,000
  • ROI: 35% in 5 years
  • Type of investment: Equity
Shopping Cart Icon and Cursor - E-Commerce Project We are setting up an e-commerce platform that provides the variety of items Nigerians wish to buy and also gives the small manufacturer and merchant in the coutry an opportunity to reach this mass of growing online shoppers. Image courtesy: Inertia NC, 2011, Flickr CC.

Investment Opportunity

We are setting up an e-commerce platform that gives Nigerians access to a wide variety of products, and the local small businesses an avenue to reach more customers.

Nigerians’ embrace of telecom, smartphones and mobile devices is giving them an unprecedented access to online shopping and purchases. They are all excited and shopping happily because now they can discover and have access to products they would never have known existed.

We are setting up an e-commerce platform that provides the variety of items they wish to buy and also gives the small manufacturer and merchant in Nigeria an opportunity to reach this mass of growing online shoppers.

We have developed our roll-out plan, appointed a web developer and are now ready to commence stocking the inventory and set up the delivery system.

The fund is needed for basic take off facilities, key personnel, initial stock of goods and the delivery logistics.

Investors are being offered 30% stake in this venture.

Competitive Advantage

We have great strength in global sourcing of consumer goods. This means there is nothing our competitors offer now that we cannot source at a lower cost and sell cheaper.

We have devised an innovative strategy that incorporate local transport system into our delivery system, thereby making it faster and more cost effective.

The merchants on the competitors’ sites are now being taken for granted. They are all limited by excessively long turnaround time of each sales transaction, to when they get their payment. We intend to correct this to our mutual benefit.

By the 3rd stage of our roll-out plan, we will execute a strategy that will give people free unlimited access to our platform.

Although the market is right now grossly underserved, we intend to continuously innovate in all areas of the business to stay ahead of the competition.

Rationale for the deal

The present opportunity represents a huge market which is just aligning with the proliferation of smartphones, cheaper data and availability of telecom network. The growth is just beginning, so there is no better time to tap into the opportunity.

We will make money from this opportunity through the following:
1. Over 50% margin on sales of direct import items on our e-commerce site.
2. Commissions from sales by other merchants on the e-commerce site.
3. Income from fund which will be in merchants escrow account until the conclusion of a transaction.
4. Income from excesses on the cost of product delivery to customers.
5. Income from online advertisements by merchants and other businesses on the site due to the high traffic it will be generating.
6. Specialized design and graphic services to merchants operating on the platform.
7. Specialized wholesale sourcing and delivery of products that are available or not on the site to customers on request. No competitor is offering this service to the best of our knowledge.
8. We have several years of experience in managing multi-product conglomerate.
9. We have experience from operating as merchants on the platform of some of the competitors.

Use of financing

The requested fund will be applied in the following areas of the business:
1. Renting and equipping of warehouse space for the company's direct imports and other stock.
2. Funding of a large variety of imported and local goods.
3. Personnel remunerations for three to six months.
4. Purchase of motor vehicles for delivery and the setting up of the delivery logistics.
5. Execution of extensive online marketing campaign to attract visits to the site.
6. Renting, equipping and staffing of the merchants' drop-off points at the roll out of vendors/merchant services.

A second round of funding will be required at the launch of the merchant/vendors services. A third may be required at full national roll-out of services and the expansion of product portfolios.

Opportunity for the investor

We are looking for equity investors who can take up to 30% of this business. ROI promises to be double what is obtainable in more matured economy because of a high level of imperfection in our market as it is. We will commence dividend payment by the end of our second year of operation.

We would not really mind whether it is a hands-on investor or a silent investor. Privacy of the investor will be respected as may be desired by the investor.

We will like the investment to be released in two tranches of $500,000.00 each. The first two months before launching and the second four months after launching.
Our target launch time is March 2, 2015.

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