In a new move designed to reduce price and ease logistics inherent in the purchase of its products, the management of Dangote Cement Plc has signed a pact with the foremost e-commerce platform Jumia Nigeria to offer for sale its cement to customers online.

At the unveiling of the deal in Lagos, Dangote Cement, Key Account Director, Chux Mogbolu said Dangote Cement was happy to partner with online shopping giant, in a bid to make Dangote cement available with ease to customers.

According to the deal, Nigerians and corporate bodies wishing to purchase a minimum of 300 bags of 50kg of Dangote Cement and above can now order on Jumia from the comfort of their rooms at a reasonable price of N2,500 ($7) per bag as opposed to how much is sold in the open market and see them delivered to any place of their choice without any extra cost for transportation.

Mogbolu, however disclosed that the purchase would only be within Lagos, Port- Harcourt and Abuja for now.

He said: “Dangote Cement decided to work with Jumia Nigeria based on its credibility and excellent performance over the years in online shopping management”, adding that the new initiative would help arrest the scams perpetrated by online fraudsters who deceived the people by asking them to come and purchase Dangote Cement for N1000 ($3)per bag.

“For now, the pilot scheme is live in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt, but we can extend to other cities depending on the level of demand and performance of the new deal”.

“With the deal, Nigerians in need of seamless supply of cement from Dangote can now place order and pay online and wait for the delivery in record time from any of Dangote’s nearest cement plant to Lagos, Port Harcourt or Abuja.

“We are starting with Minimum Order Quantity (MOQ) of 300, 600 and 900. We may increase depending on demand surge as time goes on,” Mogbolu explained.

Speaking on the deal too, Chief Executive Officer of Jumia Nigeria, Juliet Anammah said the deal with Dangote Cement is part of efforts to deepen service delivery on Jumia Nigeria online platform.

She said she was of the belief that the deal will be beneficial to all parties involved and deepen further online shopping in Nigeria as obtained all over the world.

The Jumia Nigeria boss reflected on the 2017 Black Friday Festival ran by her organization and said the Festival has attracted more than 14 million visits since the commencement of the campaign on November 13th.

According to her, “the annual sales event, which was initiated in Nigeria in 2013 by Jumia remains the busiest and largest shopping day of the year on both online and offline stores. This year’s explosive Black Friday numbers demonstrates the increasing capacity and flexibility of the online retail space in Nigeria.”

“We deliver to the 36 states across Nigeria, and are able to reach neighborhoods and shoppers who traditionally have not had access to a wide variety of products and deals. This year we also see the increasing interest in groceries and other FMCG products which reflect the increasing relevance of Black Friday to the average Nigerian.”

Some key highlights of the 2017 figures presented by Jumia Nigeria in Lagos on Thursday showed among other things more than 1.9 million visits on Black Friday Big Bang. 14.4 million visits since the start of the sales event; Overall, 85% of all visits were made on a mobile device, compared to 72% in 2016; and 86,000 smartphones and counting have been sold in the past two weeks.