Getting Free shipping on online shopping websites in Nigeria

It is one thing to shop online in Nigeria at any of the numerous local shopping websites that we have but there's mostly an added cost to doing that - A buyer also has to pay for shipping or delivery costs. This is one of the reasons why at times, I prefer doing a pickup myself at times if I'm unsatisfied with the delivery or shipping cost. However, not all shopping websites allow Nigerians to do a pickup themselves.

Shopping websites in Nigeria normally deliver items ordered by customers to any delivery address the customer chooses and this can either be at their homes or their office and it normally comes at a a cost to the merchants. When the delivery or shipping cost is included in the final bill, the buyer would have to accept the bill before his order would be delivered.

Shipping costs also tend to vary for buyers depending on their location within Nigeria and how close they are to the shopping websites's warehouse. The closer a buyer's delivery address is to the online Shopping company's warehouse, the smaller the delivery cost they have to pay and vice versa if their delivery address is farther away.

So, If for example, an online buyer is living in Bauchi and he visits an online shopping websites who has a warehouse in Lagos, the buyer is going to pay more to get his ordered items delivered to Bauchi unlike if he were living in Lagos, the same state where the shopping website's warehouse is located.

Since most online shopping websites in Nigeria are based in Lagos, probably as a result of it being a centre of commerce and having the busiest port in Nigeria, Nigerians who live outside Lagos may have to pay more on shipping costs for the long term for items they buy online except that shopping website is offering a free delivery service.

Online shopping websites can at times also offer a free shipping service to their customers for a variety of reasons such as during promos, bulk purchases, reward programs and so on. For such offers, the buyer just have to take advantage of the offer while it lasts.

Nigerian shopping websites have grown so big that some of them now offer a free nationwide delivery to any state in Nigeria. I'm not sure how they do that unless perhaps they are just marketing their brand or have already included shipping costs into their prices. Either way, it's for the benefit of online buyers that some shopping websites offer free shipping.

As a buyer or potential customer, you can get free shipping or avoid paying delivery costs in a a variety of ways such as by spending more, taking advantage of free promos or doing a pickup yourself if that shopping website allows it.

I think the spending more option is the best and most reliable because it's targeted at customers who spend more money during their shopping. A person for instance who buys items worth just under N1000(about $5.8) may not have opportunity to get items delivered to him for free unlike if he were spending as much as N10,000(about $58). Some shopping websites offer you instant free delivery just because you've spent as much as N10,000(about $58) on their sites.

So, one reliable way to avoid paying shipping costs or getting a free shipping while doing your online shopping in Nigeria is by spending more money. I think it's only a reasonable offer and if you are the kind of person who normally buys regularly, it could save you money if you just make a list of all the items you regularly buy and accumulate them until they reach a high value amount and then buy it at once. So, rather than buying small value items everyday or week, you could just accumulate your orders and buy them at once when it reaches a high value like N10,000 and above.