Ecommerce in Nigeria Poised for Growth

Nigeria’s ecommerce market is still small next to the U.S., but it is growing fast—and that matters for New York operators watching cross-border demand, marketplace expansion, and payment patterns abroad. According to Practical Ecommerce, Nigeria’s retail ecommerce sales jumped 29% in 2025, while DHL flagged the country as one of a handful of markets expected to outpace global ecommerce growth.

What the numbers show

Nigeria’s 2026 population is 242 million—the largest in Africa and the sixth largest worldwide, behind India, China, the United States, Indonesia, and Pakistan, according to United Nations figures cited by Practical Ecommerce. Euromonitor puts Nigeria’s total retail sales (online and offline) at NGN25.4 trillion ($19.0 billion) in 2025. Retail ecommerce alone reached NGN492 billion ($368 million), up 29% year over year.

For scale, U.S. 2025 retail sales were $5.3 trillion and ecommerce-only sales were $1.2 trillion. Nigeria’s online retail base is much smaller, but growth expectations are strong. DHL’s 2026 E-Commerce Trends Report named Nigeria, alongside Türkiye and Malaysia, as a market that consistently outperforms the global average across platforms for expected ecommerce growth.

Categories, marketplaces, and payments

Euromonitor’s top 2025 retail ecommerce categories in Nigeria were beauty and personal care, apparel and footwear, and wearable electronics. Jumia and Konga led the market by sales, with Jumia at 54% and Konga at 16%.

Worldpay estimates that account-to-account payments made up 44% of Nigerian ecommerce transaction value in 2025, followed by debit cards (24%), digital wallets (13%), and cash (11%). Credit cards and prepaid cards were 3% each, and buy-now, pay-later was 2%. Cross-border shopping is also common: the DHL report said 69% of Nigerian res