Retail & e-commerce · Nigeria

SMS for retailers and online stores in Nigeria

Nigerian shoppers often pay by transfer or on delivery, and the SMS that confirms an order or a payment is what makes them trust a store they found on Instagram. eSMS Africa sends order, payment and delivery messages on the transactional route, and lets you run seasonal promotions to customers who have agreed to receive them.

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MTN, Airtel, Glo, 9mobile Delivery reports From NGN 9.1 per SMS

ShopKudiTransactional

ShopKudi: Order #{order} received, NGN {total}. Pay by transfer to {acct} using #{order} as narration, or pay on delivery.

130 chars · 1 segment · GSM-7

Nigeria context

What makes retail & e-commerce messaging different in Nigeria

Many online orders in Nigeria are paid by bank transfer or on delivery, by cash, transfer or POS at the door. An SMS that confirms the order total and, later, that a transfer was matched, reduces abandoned deliveries and "I have paid" disputes.
Shops sell through websites, Instagram, WhatsApp and marketplaces at the same time. SMS is the channel that reaches every buyer by phone number, whatever app they ordered from.
Promotions spike around Christmas and the December "detty" season, Easter, Eid and back-to-school. Those offers are DND category 5 (consumer goods) traffic, so they only reach customers who have not blocked that category.
Shoppers in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt receive many promotional texts, and a store that sends too often quickly earns STOP replies and complaints. One clear offer with a short link outperforms a weekly blast.

What to send

Messages retail & e-commerce teams in Nigeria send

Order confirmation

Send the order number, total and payment method as soon as the order is placed. For transfer orders, include the account to pay into and the order reference to use as the narration.

Payment matched

Confirm when a bank transfer has been matched to the order, so the customer knows dispatch is next. This message alone cuts many calls to customer service.

Pay-on-delivery reminders

The evening before delivery, remind the customer of the amount due and the payment options the rider accepts. Fewer riders arrive to an unprepared customer.

Abandoned cart and back-in-stock

Tell a customer who asked to be notified that an item is back, or remind them of a cart, once and with an opt-out. These are promotional and need consent.

Seasonal campaigns

Plan Christmas, Easter and Eid offers for opted-in customers with a short link and a clear end date, scheduled for daytime and limited to one or two sends per season.

Sample messages

Copy-ready templates for Nigeria

Character counts and segments are calculated with the same GSM-7 and Unicode rules used for billing. Replace the example brand and values with your own.

Order confirmation Transactional

ShopKudi: Order #{order} received, NGN {total}. Pay by transfer to {acct} using #{order} as narration, or pay on delivery.

130 chars · 1 segment · GSM-7

Transfer matched Transactional

ShopKudi: We have received your transfer of NGN 48,500 for order #10422. It will be dispatched today. Track: {link}

117 chars · 1 segment · GSM-7

Delivery reminder (Pidgin) Transactional Pidgin

ShopKudi: Your order go reach you tomorrow. Abeg get NGN 22,000 ready, rider dey collect cash, transfer or POS.

111 chars · 1 segment · GSM-7

December sale Promotional

ShopKudi: December sale is on. Up to 30% off phones and kitchenware till 24 Dec. Shop: {link}. Opt out: SMS STOP to {shortcode}

131 chars · 1 segment · GSM-7

Rules that apply

Compliance for retail & e-commerce SMS in Nigeria

A practical summary with sources, not legal advice. Check the regulator's current text for edge cases.

Promotions for consumer goods fall under NCC DND category 5. Customers who blocked that category or sent STOP to 2442 will not receive them, whatever list they are on.
Order, payment and delivery messages are transactional. Do not add a discount line to an order confirmation; networks typically treat mixed content as promotional.
Under the NDPA 2023, collect marketing consent at checkout separately from the order itself, and stop marketing when a customer objects under section 36.
Price claims in promotions must be accurate and honoured. Consumer protection is enforced by the FCCPC, and advertising content falls under the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria.

Across Nigeria

Telecom regulator: Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC)
Data protection: Nigeria Data Protection Act, 2023, Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC)
Languages: English, Nigerian Pidgin, Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo
Payments: Bank transfer, USSD banking, MoMo PSB, OPay, Moniepoint, PalmPay

The NCC Do-Not-Disturb service lets subscribers text STOP to 2442 to block all promotional messages, or choose partial DND by category (banking, real estate, education, health, consumer goods, tourism, sports, religion and more).
Promotional SMS does not reach numbers on DND. OTPs, alerts and other transactional messages are sent on a separate transactional (corporate) route that operators restrict to non-promotional content.
The Nigeria Data Protection Act, 2023 gives people the right to object to direct marketing at any time, and processing for marketing must stop once they object.
Sender IDs are approved per network (MTN, Airtel, Glo, T2) and operators apply sending windows to promotional traffic.

Sender ID registration in Nigeria

Send it

From your system to MTN and Airtel in one call

1Create an account and copy a test key (esms_test_...) to try the integration without spending credit.
2Request your sender ID for Nigeria. Until it is approved you can send from the eSMS default sender.
3Call the send endpoint from your app, or upload a CSV in the dashboard with merge fields like {{name}}. Delivery reports arrive by webhook.

Need one-time codes? eSMS Verify generates, sends and checks them in two calls. Full reference in the API docs.

curl -X POST https://sms.esmsafrica.io/api/messages/send \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $ESMS_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "to": "+2348031234567",
    "text": "ShopKudi: Hi {name}, order #{order} is out for delivery today. Rider: {rider}, {rider_phone}. Amount due: NGN {amount}.",
    "sender_id": "ShopKudi"
  }'

Live pricing

SMS pricing in Nigeria

Per-SMS rates for one segment, updated live. Pay as you go with no monthly minimum; volume rates apply automatically by monthly spend.

Basic

NGN9.1

per SMS· USD 0.0068

Monthly spend USD 1 - USD 1,000

Business

NGN7.5

per SMS· USD 0.0056

Monthly spend USD 1,001 - USD 4,999

Enterprise

NGN6.1

per SMS· USD 0.0046

Monthly spend USD 5,000+

Estimate a campaign with the SMS cost calculator or compare all countries in the Africa SMS pricing index.

FAQ

Retail & e-commerce SMS in Nigeria: common questions

Why did my promotion not reach some customers?

Customers on full DND (STOP to 2442) or who blocked category 5 (consumer goods) will not receive promotional SMS, and the delivery report shows those messages as failed. Order and delivery messages on the transactional route are not affected. Clean your list of numbers that fail on every campaign.

What time should we send promotions?

Networks apply sending windows to promotional traffic, and vendors commonly cite daytime hours, though this is operator practice rather than published NCC law. Daytime sends also earn fewer complaints. Schedule campaigns in the dashboard so they go out at a sensible local hour.

Can we personalise each message?

Yes. Upload a CSV or Excel file with name, order number and amount columns, or use the bulk API with vars for each recipient, and write the text with {name} and {amount} placeholders. Preview a few messages and check the segment count before sending.