E-Business
Online Shoppers: How To Ensure You Fill Your Carts with Genuine & Quality Products

By Adeniyi Ogunfowoke,
On a daily basis across the world, online shoppers fill their shopping carts with tons of thousands of products such as groceries, electronics, health & beauty, gaming, phones and tablets. The quality of products purchased online has always been a point of debate among shoppers, especially since the products can’t be inspected before purchase. The trend is the same in Nigeria, even though the country’s ecommerce sector is just 7 years old.
One of the fundamental methods for helping customers make the right choice when shopping online is ‘ratings and reviews’. Ecommerce companies such as Jumia have made a provision on their platforms for customers to rate and review the quality of products purchased on its jumia.com.ng platform.

Product ratings and reviews have become an essential part of eCommerce businesses because they enable customers to rate/review products or services purchased online. These companies do not do this for fun. They understand that product ratings/reviews have a huge role to play when it comes to driving sales, generating leads and attracting customers to their website.
From gaining local organic search rankings to becoming word-of-mouth, online reviews help reinforce your brand and reputation. If you are rarely mentioned anywhere on the web, how will it influence your customers?
The fact is so many consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations and this is where brands like Jumia, Nigeria’s no 1 shopping destination is different from others. The platformhas a rating guide because quality is part of its fundamental values. More so, it allows customers to leave feedback about their service and products which increases their “mentions”, ultimately leading to more exposure and driving more traffic.
There’s no denying the fact that online reviews are very significant today, and not just that, they are part of most marketing campaigns today so that they can create a big impact in the industry and break sales.
Reasons why reviews/ratings are important to your business
Increase sales
People tend to read online reviews and trust them as much as they are recommended by their friends or families. A significant number of people consider online reviews while choosing a product or service of their need. So, if the particular product review is good, there is a good chance that you will purchase that product and vice versa. This will automatically increase sales.
Better local search rankings
Customer reviews play a crucial role today for organic search rankings in search engines. In fact, enabling customer reviews will add credibility to your company while new reviews are also going to add more unique content to your site. The increased amount of content that is relevant and unique will add a better chance to get ranked on search engines while the pages are also frequently crawled by search engine bots compared to others. All in all, reviews are very important to improve search visibility and drive more traffic to the site through search engines today.
Improved communication and customer service
Analysing the reviews people leave for you – both good and bad – helps keep your ear to the ground with regards to overall customer satisfaction and public opinion. Online reviews help give a voice to both happy and unhappy customers and allow you to open up a public channel of conversation, letting you demonstrate your customer service skills. Online reviews can also give you valuable feedback with regards to what your clients actually want. Reviews provide insight into how your average consumer thinks about your service or industry, rather than what you think about what you offer.
Added marketing opportunities
Online reviews are surely worth the deal and they offer a plethora of benefits to your business that most marketing campaigns fail to do. In fact, online reviews act as micro-marketing campaigns that provide a positive benefit to your potential customers, now and in the long run. Having online reviews already is also going to encourage new customers to voice their opinion and leave their own feedback.
Do product reviews/ratings actually influence online purchasing decisions?
If you describe reviews/ratings/testimonials as the word-of-mouth of online shopping, you won’t be wrong. This is as earlier stated, a lot of customers read these reviews before deciding whether they should buy a product or not. This is even more important due to the prevalence of fake products on some online platforms despite painstaking efforts and stringent penalties to put them at bay.
So, if the review of a particular product is positive and is rated 5-star, your customers will be more inclined to buy that product and if there are so many bad reviews, note that they will steer clear.
However, know that in some cases, it does not necessarily mean that the product is bad. A bad review may be as a result of poor customer service, payment challenges and others. This is systemic. Your customers are informing you to make their purchase seamless. Overall, for you to get favourable reviews, simply offer quality products and services as well as a good customer service and you will observe the positive impact it will have on your reviews.
E-Business
Galaxy Backbone Celebrates the Federal Government’s Paperless Civil Service Milestone

Galaxy Backbone (GBB) aligns with and celebrates the successful announcement by the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation on the achievement of a Paperless Civil Service, a significant milestone in Nigeria’s public sector reform and digital transformation agenda.

The milestone was formally highlighted at a press briefing led by the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Mrs. Didi Esther Walson-Jack, who commended Galaxy Backbone for its sustained support and contribution throughout the implementation of the programme.
GBB has played a critical role in enabling this transition by providing secure, scalable, and shared digital infrastructure that supports the digitisation of government processes across Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs). Through the 1Government Cloud, MDAs have been empowered to migrate from paper-based workflows to digital platforms, improving efficiency, collaboration, data security, and service delivery across the Federal Civil Service.
In addition, GovMail, GBB’s secure government email platform, has strengthened official communication, enhanced records management, and reinforced cybersecurity standards—key pillars in sustaining a paperless operating environment.
Galaxy Backbone acknowledges the collective efforts of the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Permanent Secretaries, Directors of ICT, consultants, partners, and dedicated public servants whose commitment and collaboration ensured the smooth delivery of this initiative.
The Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Galaxy Backbone, Prof. Ibrahim Adeyanju, was represented at the press briefing by Akintayo Bamisaye, Acting Group Head, Research, Digital Innovation and Skills Department (RDIS).
GBB describes the achievement as a strong close to 2025 and reaffirms its commitment to supporting the Federal Government in building a modern, efficient, and digitally enabled public service.
E-Business
Jumia CEO says Black Friday Signals Nigeria’s E-Commerce Maturity

At the close of 2025, Temidayo Ojo, the CEO of Jumia Nigeria, reflected on a year-end shopping season that points to the growing maturity of the country’s e-commerce market. “Black Friday is no longer a single, short-lived spike in activity,” he said.

“It has become a familiar, anticipated moment in the retail calendar, where consumers shop deliberately and with confidence.”
Preliminary KPIs for the two months ended November 30, 2025, show strong year-on-year growth in both orders and Gross Merchandise Value (GMV), with GMV growth outpacing order growth. This indicates that customers are placing fuller, more considered baskets rather than shopping in fragmented transactions. Nigeria ranked among Jumia Group’s better-performing markets, with engagement remaining steady throughout the Black Friday period rather than spiking briefly and tapering off.
A key factor behind this performance is the growing familiarity of consumers with online shopping. Customers are increasingly leveraging platform features such as saved carts, brand stores, and price comparison tools to plan purchases in advance. This trend suggests that digital commerce is becoming embedded in everyday habits rather than being viewed as a one-off event.
Ojo also highlighted the role of Jumia’s JForce network in connecting digital commerce to local communities. “Our agents are critical to ensuring that customers across Nigeria, including secondary cities and smaller communities, have access to variety, consistent pricing, and reliable delivery,” he said. “During peak periods like Black Friday, JForce agents can respond faster, serve more customers efficiently, and build stronger local relationships. This isn’t just a distribution channel—it’s a pathway to sustainable income and inclusion.”
Reflecting on the overall performance, the CEO concluded: “What we’re seeing this year-end is steady engagement across categories, stronger consumer confidence, and partners like our JForce agents benefiting from increased activity.
“It confirms that Nigeria’s e-commerce ecosystem is maturing, growing in a more structured and resilient way. As the December Holiday Sale continues, we expect these patterns of familiarity, trust, and participation to sustain momentum and drive both commerce and community impact across the country.”
E-Business
Galaxy Backbone Tops FG’s Website Performance Ranking

Galaxy Backbone Limited (GBB) has been ranked first overall in the 2025 Federal Government Website Performance Scorecard.

This is a landmark achievement for Nigeria’s digital economy.
The ranking, conducted by the Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR), is the definitive benchmark for digital excellence and transparency across all Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs).
Professor Ibrahim Adepoju Adeyanju, managing director and CEO of Galaxy Backbone, received the award during a ceremony in Abuja.
He described the feat as a validation of the agency’s“Nigeria First”data sovereignty strategy and its relentless pursuit of service excellence.
This recognition comes as the Federal Government intensifies its push to achieve a fully paperless civil service by December 31, 2025.
GBB has been the primary architect of this transition through its 1Gov Enterprise Content Management (ECM) platform, which now hosts the operations of almost all federal MDAs.
The award adds to a growing list of accolades for Galaxy Backbone in 2025, following its recent win of the “International Standard Excellence Award for Best IT Service Provider.”
As the central hub for government shared services, GBB’s performance serves as a blueprint for other agencies currently undergoing digital transformation.
With its expanded fiber-optic backbone now covering over 13 states and its secure cloud solutions, Galaxy Backbone remains the cornerstone of Nigeria’s vision to become a leading digital nation by the end of the decade.
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