Hicolumn, e-commerce Tech that connects consumers to their choice stores close to their neighbourhood has been launched in Lagos.

The unveiling of the ground-breaking e-commerce Tech was held in grand style with a drone delivering the Hicolumn package to top-notch Nollywood celebrity, Tayo Sobola, popularly called Sotayo Gaga, indicating the swiftness and innovation behind the cutting-edge marketplace.

Highlights of the event includes free shopping vouchers to fans of the celebrity and the online shopping she made, which was delivered swiftly before 20 minutes, an attestation of Hicolumn’s prompt delivery service.

The e-commerce tech, which is a mobile app, is designed to give visibility to neighbourhood stores and connect them directly to customers anywhere, anytime. It comprises of the Hicolumn Customer, Merchant and Delivery Apps respectively which are connected together and work as one Enterprise Resources Programme.

Speaking at the launch, chairman of Hicolumn, Benjamin Madu, said the e-commerce Tech is designed to revolutionise the online market in Africa, and offers stores, merchants, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with existing and verifiable businesses, the chance of participating on the platform by downloading the app within 30 minutes, and absolutely free of any registration charges.

It also gives them the opportunity of leveraging the internet to serve or sell to their existing and prospective customers without the customers physically visiting the shops.

In his remark, Hicolumn’s Co-Founder and CEO,, Uche Elekwachi, said the platform will transform the online market in Nigeria and Africa with its innovative mobile app that will give merchants the ability to sell their goods to widely dispersed customers.

He said the e-commerce Tech has come to the rescue of merchants and store owners, to become super strong, active online and not to lose their business focus to foreign competitors currently entering their domain, especially in this period of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic when shopping is mostly done online.

Highlighted benefits that accrue to merchants and stores partnering with Hicolumn are increased profitable sales; reduced cost of operation with less than five employees; proper inventory management; and elimination of threat posed by the current e-commerce system.

Visa has joined forces with Conferma Pay to launch a suite of B2B payment solutions to help improve cashflow for businesses and eliminate manual processes.

Flutterwave, Africa’s fast-rising payments technology company,  has announced the launch of its ‘Payment Protection Promise’, a new policy that protects customers when shopping online and dealing with merchants on its payment platform.

The policy acts as a money-back guarantee to shoppers when an item or service purchased does not arrive, is faulty, damaged on arrival or does not match the item that was listed.

The new policy is part of the company’s attempt to alleviate the fears of online shoppers and boost their confidence and sense of security when using Flutterwave’s payment solutions.
The Payment Protection Promise is primarily meant to further strengthen the growing online shopping culture in Africa and displace the scepticism often associated with patronising e-commerce businesses.

The policy is being kick-started in Nigeria and covers only Nigerian transactions with a transaction value starting from N10,000 and below.

Founder & CEO of Flutterwave, Olugbenga Agboola, stated that, “the goal of the Flutterwave Payments Protection Promise is to ensure that all who shop online and pay with Flutterwave are confident that they can shop safely and get value for their money. We understand that with the rising online shopping culture in Africa, there are bound to be issues of lack of trust in online businesses and we are using this policy to close that gap.”

He added that “When anyone sees the Flutterwave logo while shopping online, we want them to feel safe and confident knowing that they are covered. This policy is also beneficial to our merchants as it will boost patronage and sales due to increased customer confidence and assurance of value.”

According to Agboola, under the Flutterwave Payments Protection Promise, merchants can file counterclaims when wrongly accused. However, merchants found to be repeatedly fraudulent will be delisted from Flutterwave’s payment platforms. The company has highlighted various means through which customers can dispute a transaction, they can either self-serve through the Flutterwave dispute page or make use of Flutterwave’s support channels.

Flutterwave has remained in the frontline of improving small businesses and securing customers through innovation. In April, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic which led to restriction of movement, the company introduced the Flutterwave store to keep small businesses afloat. In the wake of the recent unrest in Lagos, the Company also partnered with the Lagos State Employment Trust Fund to rebuild affected businesses.