Gokada plans to launch in other cities apart from Lagos
Ride-hailing company, Gokada is set to combine its logistics (Gsend) and food delivery (Gshop) services into a single application and also expand its services to Ogun and Ibadan.
Recall that Gokada began offering logistics and food services after Lagos state banned ride hailing services in Lagos state.
Speaking with Techcrunch, Gokada CEO, Nikhil Goel said, “In September and October, we launched GShop which is the food delivery platform for Gokada. What we realized from our customers was that while they were using the GSend and GShop separately, they came to us asking if we could put them together,”
“So doing this is more like a transition from other things we were doing and making it easier for our customers to have all our services in one platform and create a super app.”
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“Before Gokada ventured into ride-hailing in Lagos, people questioned us. When we entered the delivery space, it was the same question people asked. They said we didn’t have the experience. But today, if you look at it critically, we’ve changed this market in a different manner,” Goel said.
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Goel said, although Gokada is only present in Lagos, the company is looking to launch its services across other cities, including Abuja, Port Harcourt, Ibadan, and Ogun. And not only will the super app allow Gokada customers in these cities to access food delivery, e-commerce (medicines and groceries among other supplies), and logistics, but they will be able to use ride-hailing services. The company plans to start with neighboring markets to Lagos — Ogun, and Ibadan.
“We started with its ride-hailing service in Lagos. We were mostly known as one of the pioneers of ride-hailing in Lagos before the ban. So far, we’ve not ventured outside Lagos, and the reason for that has been that we wanted to remain focused on our new business here. And it’s evident that when you move across Lagos, you will see our delivery bikes everywhere on the road. But ride-hailing will always stay with us wherever we go outside the city,” the CEO added.
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Gokada is in talks to secure operational licenses for ride-hailing but has already acquired a NIPOST license to mitigate future risks on the regulatory front and allow them to operate courier logistics services across the country.
While services in a super app can differ from one platform to another, payments are the defining functionality that ties those offerings together. For now, Gokada only provides a subset of that, which is a wallet feature and a debit card option to pay for these services. On why this is the case, Goel said: “Before many of these companies like Grab and Gojek got into payments, they were providing other services. The idea for a super app is to provide customers with different services under one umbrella to ease their lives. That’s what we’re doing but we’re open to a payments play in the future.”