How night trading boosts local retailers’ daily sales
CONSUMER SPENDING
The high cost of getting a shop, economic uncertainty and slow sales are forcing local retailers to embrace night trading in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital. A new exploratory report entitled “Lagos night markets: At night in Lagos, trades too don’t sleep” which was carried out by Businessday Research and Intelligence Unit (BRIU), the research arm of Businessday shows that local retailers survive low sales during the day through night trading in strategic locations in the state.
According to some of the market traders, they trade at night in order to meet up the needs of millions of working class Lagosians who could not shop during the day because of their work schedules.
“At the outset, we set the tone of the research by asking some major fundamental questions. To start with, why does this market exist? How big is the Lagos’ night market? What kinds of goods are sold and where are the best locations for night market? Again, what are the socio-economic characteristics of its players? What impact incomes made from night market activities have on poverty alleviation? “, the report stated.
Statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reveals that Nigerians spend an average of 40 hours working in a week, and people still prefer going to buy their items physically as they are yet to fully embrace online retail purchase despite huge online presence. Nigeria currently ranks fourth behind South Africa, Morroco, and Kenya respectively in online retail purchase according to a recent report by the Boston Consulting Group. The night traders strategically chose locations that enhance their visibility, typically roadsides, besides the bus terminals, and railway lines to display their goods ranging from basic needs to non-essential products.
The thriving night markets within the metropolis, the report reveals, are located in Orile Iganmu, Oshodi, Ojuelegba, Abule-ado, Lagos-ota Toll Gate, Yaba, Ketu, Maza Maza, among others. Insights from the 32-page report reveal that retailers arrive at the night markets at about 6 pm and trade into the wee hours of the night.
Why most of the traders interviewed blamed the worsening economic situations in the country as the reason they engage in the growing night trading, specifically, the traders attributed their participation in the night market activities to astronomical rents being charged by owners of lock-up shops.
In the last few years, traditional open markets in Lagos have been demolished to pave the way for modern markets and malls. The effect is that most of the traders displaced from the old markets found it difficult to go back to their former shops because they could not raise the fund to secure the newly built lock-up shops.
According to Tomide, one of the traders that featured in the report, she said a large number of people passing through certain paths has prompted traders to stay late into the night because most people arrive late at some of their locations due to heavy traffic, hence they prefer to buy their dinner or other items by the roadsides.
“I have been selling at Ojuelegba for the past 20 years. We sometimes sell late into the night because of low turnover; the motivating factor is the late arrival of workers on their onward journeys to their various homes”, Tomide said.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its Working Paper WP/18/17, “Shadow Economies around the World: What Did We Learn Over the Last 20 Years?” defines shadow economy as “All economic activities which are hidden from official authorities for monetary, regulatory, and institutional reasons.”
Speaking on the report, Teliat Sule, head of BRIU, noted that the interest in the night market stemmed from the fact that many countries in the world are working hard to unravel the size, players and intricacies surrounding their shadow economies. For Nigeria, Lagos is the largest state economy will be a good starting point.
According to him, the report will give better understanding to government agencies on how individuals in Nigeria’s largest state economy, Lagos State, earn their livelihoods. Other information contained in the report will help public officials to have a better understanding of the nation’s ever-expanding shadow economy.