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Shopping online in Nigeria is not for the weak. Because even after online vendors waste time in taking and confirming your order, you still have to pursue them to deliver the product. And then you open the long-awaited package, you see something completely different from what you ordered.
These seven Nigerians share their awful experiences shopping with online vendors.
She left me on read
— Lisa, 23
I bought a dress from a “friend”. After waiting at least two months, the dress arrived and I was heartbroken. The fabric was trash, it was too short, and it just looked ugly. I texted her and even sent pictures and videos to complain but she left me on read. It seems she also blocked me from viewing her WhatsApp statuses because I never saw her statuses again even though I see her texting on our school group chat.
She said she had a no refund policy
— Dora, 25
My friend wanted to buy a gift for his girlfriend, so he came to me and I went online and found a tailor who makes ready-to-wear dresses on Ig. I paid to have four dresses made. When the dresses arrived, they didn’t fit and the sewing looked tacky. It was an all-around bad job. When we reached out to her, she became very hostile, saying she had a no refund policy. We had to let it go.
After searching for weeks for a birthday gift for my friend, I found an IG vendor who sold designer bags. Worst ₦50K ever spent, because I bought two of them for two different people. The bags looked so bad that I had to buy a replacement gift.
It was useless to me
— Tayo, 26
Went online to shop for school supplies and I decided to get a backpack. When I thought I’d found the perfect one — because it came with sections for my charger, laptop, and books — I didn’t believe what was delivered to me because it couldn’t even fit one book. I still think it looks really nice but it’s not functional, so it’s useless to me.
They wouldn’t fit, so I gave them to charity
— Cecilia*, 26
Online vendors are actually after my life. They’re either two sizes smaller or bigger — no middle ground. The most terrible experience was last year when I bought corporate thrift dresses in bulk from an online store with plans to resell. They actually looked like the picture — only way bigger than advertised. After spending about ₦40K on them, none fit my customers. I kept them for months before I finally gave them to charity.
I looked like a joke in the shoes
— Ariel*, 24
Some online vendors are wicked. Because, after bombarding me with ads for leather shoes, I decided to give her a try. When it arrived, it looked like rubber. I felt like a joke, so I just blocked her number.
They tried to gaslight me and called me dramatic
— Tope, 25
The one incident has particularly scarred me from online shopping. It wasn’t so much that they got my order wrong as the vendor’s attitude toward me. They sent a picture of the finished product and the colour was yellow instead of white as I ordered. And instead of apologizing, they tried to gaslight me, accusing me of being dramatic. After a series of back and forths, they asked for my account number to give me a refund since they hadn’t already sent it out. It was so upsetting but at least I got my money back.
I wanted an oversized tee but this neck can fit two people
— David, 28
Two months ago, I placed an order on a popular shopping site but I was appalled by what I got. I wanted an oversized tee but the neck of this could fit two people! The package now sits beautifully in a corner since I can’t wear it.
Therapy is expensive, retail therapy included, but wouldn’t you rather spend a sickening amount of money on clothes you’d forget in your wardrobe than on telling a therapist that your daddy beat you for stealing sweets two decades ago, now you cry for no reason when you see sweets? Yes? Same.
Here’s why retail therapy slaps.
1. You can heal your inner child
Having adult money is wild because you can just choose to get that toy you begged your mum for every month since you turned 10, and no one will beat you for spending it. You can buy a pack of chocolates, and eat it all in a day, and no one will judge you except your dentist, and last last, they’ll be fine.
2. Waiting for your delivery gives you a reason to live
If you’ve never had to wait for an international package to be delivered, you’re missing out. According to the Zikoko bureau of statistics, studies have shown that waiting for a delivery package increases your lifespan. Anyone who says money can’t solve your problems is a liar and a detty bitch.
3. Everyone likes new things
New things smell amazing and will instantly make you smile. Whoever made online shopping possible needs an award and a hot plate of amala. What a genius! You mean I can get what I want without moving an inch? Just thinking about the pose you’ll make in the mirror when you get a new shoe or dress will brighten your day.
Sometimes, you’re sad for no reason, and no amount of food or hugs can help, but doom scrolling through shopping apps can ease your mind and put you in a better mood. Try planning an outfit for two hours and see if you won’t forget all your worries for a while.
5. It’s like opening a present
The best part of retail therapy is the unboxing. It’s the little thank you note for patronizing the vendor, the plans you get to make for that new box and the shot of relief when that shoe fits. All these little things can make the unboxing of your self-bought presents pretty exciting.
6. It gives you temporary joy
If you had to choose between being super sad and temporary happiness, won’t you choose to be happy? Can that new bag pay for one therapy session? Yes, but does therapy come with free sample perfumes? No, and that’s on 14 similar t-shirts in your ASOS cart.
Back in the day, literally all shopping was carried out offline. Now, you can even lie in bed and shop for groceries online. One less thing to stress about as you hustle for your daily 2k.
Your online shopping experience could even be made better with these following things:
1. The wisdom of your forefathers
Shopping is addictive, and your cart is filled enough. Wisdom will prevent you from impulsively spending all the money you’ve saved for japaing on one handbag.
2. Discounts, discounts, discounts
Shopping is much more fun when you are saving some coins, yes or yes? If your favourite shopping store doesn’t give discounts, fight them.
3. A password even the Devil cannot guess
How long will you keep using 123456789 and your birthday in reverse as your password? It’s 2022, fix up before one hacker will access all your card details and wipe your account clean.
4. The patience of a snail
Not every shiny, carefully photographed item on a e-store is the real deal. Patience will prove helpful in getting value for your money. Unless you want to keep regretting a hasty purchase till you clock ninety.
5. Doorstep delivery
Wouldn’t it be cool if you could shop globally and get your order shipped right to your doorstep? If you live alone and are trying to prevent the whole of Nigeria from knowing you even have money to order stuff from the abroad, this option is perfect!
Are you an online shopper? You’ll love this.
Discover the joy of shopping in the US, China, UK and Turkey amongst other countries with 32 S&S addresses worldwide. Why wait? Sign up with Shop and Ship today.
“A Week In The Life” is a weekly Zikoko series that explores the working-class struggles of Nigerians. It captures the very spirit of what it means to hustle in Nigeria and puts you in the shoes of the subject for a week.
The subject for today is Damilola Bello, she’s a partner at Smallchops.ng. A successful online business that makes and delivers small chops. She walks us through building a successful business, her plans to build an online platform for trusted vendors and chasing big dreams.
MONDAY:
I wake up around 7 am. The first thing I do is pick up my phone and check my Twitter DMs. I check to see if I have any orders for the day. I see some, so I process and lock them in for delivery. For the rest of the day, I’ll respond to customers who haven’t received their orders, and take more orders.
I run a partnership with Smallchops.ng. It’s my job to handle customer relations and ensure orders are processed. A large part of my day involves attending to this. I also have other jobs – I run yellow pages for vendors where I connect trusted vendors to customers free of charge. In addition, I also give business advice to a digital marketing company. So I always have something happening at one point or the other. It helps that I am good at multitasking, so I never have issues running all these simultaneously.
Today, I have an issue with a customer. This customer made a payment, the transaction didn’t reflect in our account, but she got debited. So we have been going back and forth between her bank and our payment provider to find out where the fault was. Out of the blue, she sent us a message that if we don’t refund her she’ll call us out on social media. I called, to try to resolve the problem and she turned it into a shout fest. Turns out it was her sister who sent the message so when I called to clarify, she was confused and that’s why she started shouting. The only reason I found out was because she called back to apologise after all the shouting.
Customers. You need to be patient with them.
The trick with dealing with difficult customers is to just keep updating them and keeping them in the loop. If you leave a difficult customer alone, you’re putting yourself in a lot of trouble. If we haven’t processed an order and I sense that the person will be problematic, I run. I just say “I am so sorry, I’m not available to pick your order.”
What helps me with this job is that nothing gets me down for more than two minutes. I have an extremely positive outlook on life so it’s easy to shrug things like this off and find a solution. The solution this evening looks like a bottle of Frontera sweet red wine.
TUESDAY:
Nigeria is a business killer. From NEPA to taxes, to even the air we breathe, it’s killing us. If I want to advise anybody, it’ll be that they should start a business that doesn’t require a lot of capital. Especially for operational cost. Anything that requires a generator, avoid it.
The next advice would be about creating structure – there must be a business name, business logo, mission and vision. After that, I’d ask them about how they will buy their goods. Many businesses don’t have a physical store, but they usually have an online store. I usually advise that it’s not just enough to open an online store on social media, but to also have a host like Flutterwave or Paystack. This is because social media sites can crash. In addition, I tell them to inspect the quality of their goods. I also encourage them to take really nice pictures because customers want real-life photos. The next step is the pricing – what’s the profit margin? If it’s too much, I suggest to them not to overdo it. I always insist that if the goods are well packaged, they’ll get a nice profit margin without doing too much.
Let me do this quickly self.
Vendor babies. As digitization of your business is now the next key thing in the growth of your business. It’s very imperative that you explore every means possible to give your business a digital foot print.
Lastly, the most important part of any business is customer service; value-added service. It’s not enough to just have products, customer relationships are everything. I don’t even want to hear that you are rude to customers. You must always calm down and sort whatever is wrong. Customers aren’t always right but they are king. They are the reason the business exists and If you chase all of them away, sorry to you.
I am confident when giving advice because I am not talking from a textbook. I am applying all these things myself. The experience I have from solving problems in my business makes it easier to give valid advice to other people.
Today, a vendor came to thank me for my advice and referral. It was useful in landing a job with a lot of customers. Hearing this made me really really happy. It also reinforced my belief that is my purpose; I am here to help people and their businesses grow.
WEDNESDAY:
If I think about it, I have given advice to over 300 businesses. And at one point or the other, I have either patronized them or I know someone who has. This is part of what has inspired me to launch my website in August. The site is going to be yellow pages for vendors endorsed by me. Thinking about it today is exciting because this site will prevent a lot of scams. Also, in cases where there is a misunderstanding, I can always come in. Because there’s going to be trust among all parties involved. There will also be a part on the website where customers can anonymously give reviews about vendors, and rate their services.
It’s all so exciting, just thinking about it but it’s also a lot to take in.
I need to relax my head so I’m just going to order food from one of my vendors. Preferably something with a lot of potato fries in it. Before COVID, I’d have just gone clubbing with my best friend. We would have gone somewhere with loud music and alcohol to relax. Now that we don’t have the luxury of going out, let me just eat and be happy.
THURSDAY:
Business can be frustrating because of delivery people. They are a thorn in my flesh. Managing them is one of the most difficult parts of running a business. I can’t help but think about the many times delivery men have frustrated me. One time, I sent out a package of small chops by 9 am, but it didn’t get to the recipient by 4 pm. The customer was so pissed and disappointed that it ruined my mood. I had to send another package the next day to compensate. Another time, the delivery person ate the gizzard in the small chops meant for a client. I was so confused and frustrated when the customer called to tell me that there was no gizzard in the order. And I was sure I packed gizzard. Without hesitating, we cut off the delivery company for our own good.
Business can also be rewarding. I remember the first time I made a million naira in sales, I was super happy. It was a big deal to me because I made that amount of money from selling small chops. And this was independent of sales from other sales channels we have. I made it all on my own.
So, business has its ups and downs like any other thing.
My plan for today is simple: Attend to customers and respond to any complaints they may have. Just another day at the job.
FRIDAY:
One of the most successful events I have organized in recent times is the night market.
I noticed that customers always complain about goods being overpriced. I also noticed that something I bought for ₦1,690 from one vendor was being sold at ₦4,000 by another vendor. Meaning even if the person sold at half the price, they would still have made a profit. So, I had an idea – A night market where prices are 50% off so that vendors can sell some of their stock and still make a profit, while customers also get a good bargain. The first edition was successful, and the response was so overwhelming.
Having the knowledge to spot opportunities like this is part of why I registered for an MBA program. As of today, my end goal is to one day be the Chief Operating Officer of a company and I need an MBA to effectively do that.
I don’t mind being the COO of a multinational someday – Microsoft or KPMG doesn’t sound like a bad idea from where I am standing.
Check back every Tuesday by 9 am for more “A Week In The Life ” goodness, and if you would like to be featured or you know anyone who fits the profile, fill this form.
Black Friday deals are the best; you get to buy goods, gadgets and household items at the lowest prices. Although there have been many controversies about the origin of the term, Black Friday, many people are willing to overlook it in their quest to acquire quality items at the cheapest rate. Who doesn’t like awoof?
In Nigeria however, Black Friday deals are never straightforward because the discounted and flash sales by eCommerce companies in Nigeria are designed to frustrate everyone’s efforts.
Here are some of the antics that online retail stores make to avoid selling customers items at ridiculously low prices, totally negating their advertisements and promises to that end:
Hiked fees weeks before:
So you think you’re really smart by waiting until November before buying anything from that eCommerce store?
Well, you have another think coming because they are always one step ahead, which is why they increase the prices of all their items weeks before Black Friday, then plummet it back to the normal price for “discounted sales” and you’re there chopping that ela like no man’s business.
Treasure hunts that lead nowhere:
When you are told that the only way to get that IPhone X you’ve been lusting after is to canvass through lots of irrelevant items that you don’t want. So begins the merry go round of actually finding NOTHING or clicking on an item that gives a different result:
Remember when I said everything is designed to frustrate your efforts? You should have taken that literally because the websites and mobile apps of these eCommerce companies only get temperamental when its Black Friday.
So you’re there trying to login but it’s taking forever and you think it’s your bad network that’s causing it? Nah. You’re gonna miss the 6pm flash sale deadline because the company wants you to.
Tik-tok clock that runs faster than Usian Bolt:
Don’t forget the fact that you are trying to beat the 30 minutes clock of the flash sales while trying to actually get that preferred fridge–all to no avail, because everything is designed to work against you. Losing sleep is simply not worth it.
Sold out items within nanoseconds:
Yes, we know everyone is scrambling to buy every discounted item and the fastest finger wins but, isn’t it weird that some items are tagged as “sold out” and “out of stock” a minute after they were put on display? I smell a rat and its rotten.
Price slash for irrelevant products:
The most ridiculous thing is when you log on to an online store and see that all the items with a price slash are things you are not interested in buying because their original price isn’t that expensive sef and you can buy them at anytime–Black Friday or not.
When you can’t checkout your cart:
Yay! You scaled through and were able to prove everyone that ever said “Black Friday in Nigeria is a scam” wrong. Awesome. Err, have you been able to check out your cart? Ha, maybe you should refresh the website. What? The website has crashed? SORRY O.
