Ethics and the Prospect of E-Commerce Platforms in Doing Business in Nigeria

Abstract

Following the outbreak of the pandemic, more Nigerians became liberal towards accepting and engaging e-commerce platforms for their purchases. However, there is a surging scepticism about the ability of e-commerce platforms in Nigeria to meet the demands of consumers. Nigerians have accused e-commerce platforms of uncompetitive turnaround time, discrepancy between customer orders and deliveries and failure to and deliver on brand promise. This chapter explores the ethical remedy to the unethical concerns expressed by Nigerian consumers when engaging ecommerce platforms. The study purposively gathered selected data on customers’ feedback from Jumia Nigeria’s website between April 1st and July 31st 2020 when lockdown measures were enforced in Nigeria. The study found that consumers’ mistrust and complaints about e-commerce platforms can be attributed to the absence of transparency on the part of e-commerce platforms to effectively use communication in keeping their customers abreast of the status of their order. Based on the findings, it was recommended that effective communication channels should be deployed to keep customers abreast of circumstances resulting in the delay or cancelling of their orders.