Sales Promo On Steroids? New Platform Now Charges Customers Only NGN 10.00 For Meals & Delivers It Too
Believe it or not; OPay is charging people only NGN 10.00 for decent meals and delivering it right to their doorsteps. It’s totally real.
When the Opera-backed payments platform, OPay, arrived in Nigeria with a war chest of USD 50 Mn, it became almost certain that it would make a splash in the Nigerian market. That was in July and what followed were permutations from persons familiar with the matter about how all that money will be put to use.
However, none of those permutations said anything about freebies and handouts, which is pretty much what OPay is up to these days. First, OPay said its newly-launched bike-hailing arm, ORide, was going to be charging a flat rate of NGN 100.00 (USD 0.28) for all its trips around Lagos throughout the month of June.
It sounded incredulous initially, but they pull it off with aplomb. Passengers were moving from one of Lagos to another for basically next to nothing provided they downloaded the OPay app, funded their wallet, and paid for the service through the app. Before long, everyone was talking about OPay, app downloads swelled to over a million, and the bike-hailing service soon went beyond Lagos to launch in Ibadan.
And now, OPay is at it again. This time, it is pretty much offering meals to people for free, charging just NGN 10.00 for hearty meals sourced from small restaurants popularly called Bukas in Lagos and having them delivered to customers who sign up on the platform and place orders via the app. With this, OPay is hoping to onboard as many new users as possible and it appears, the platform will stop at nothing to get the attention of millions of Nigerians who are spoiling for a freebie. (And everyone loves a freebie.)
OPay’s NGN 10.00 meals can only be ordered through the OPay app. To buy the food, one would have to download the OPay app, register with their details, and then place an order. Persons who have tried it out say the meals arrive in about half an hour and the food is good enough.
OPay has been very strategic in its determination to endear itself to Nigerians and capture the market. So far, sales promotion has played a huge role in this regard. Within a matter of months, OPay has also gone on to launch a tricycle-hailing service, OTrike, in Aba, southeast Nigeria, and a bus-hailing service called OBus in Lagos.
In the meantime, OPay’s business model has left many industry analysts wondering just what they are up to and if the platform is shooting itself in the foot with these stunts and gimmicks. Some hold the opinion that the company may be playing a long game its real intentions would become lucid as time goes on.
The company’s aggressive attempt to take over the online payment sector seems on track. And the fact that the company has continued to make use of adequate sales promotions to target customers is quite the genius move but questions bordering on longevity and customer service (some customers are irked by what they perceive as poor service when they need help with the app), continue to arise.
Featured Image Courtesy: dignited.com
