Taste, convenience shaping consumer christmas shopping

After all the stress and long months of expectation, December is here and Christmas almost at hand. For almost everybody, it is the most anticipated month of the year. Most female consumers find themselves spending so much time shopping for the family. While some women start shopping early just to beat the market rush before Christmas, others come up with endless lists of things to be bought in readiness for the Christmas and New Year celebrations.

This year’s preparation has not been spared the usual complaints by shoppers about high prices of goods, and even the discount you get from some big stores.

The presence of superstores like Mega Plaza; Shoprite and Games at The Palms Shopping Mall; Spar and Park ‘n’ Shop Shopping Centre; Buy Now Now in Arena Shopping Mall; Chams plc, all in Lagos, and more, has no doubt, brought about a major change in the shopping trait of Nigerians.

This season, the daily increase in cost of living, is surely affecting shoppers who are always looking out for value for money. It is usually interesting to them when they enter into a supermarket or even the open market and discover that their cherished products have not given way to the ostensibly inevitable price increase. This can also be quite comforting, as food, personal care, and household products account for 37 percent of total monthly household spend.

With increasing sophistication in the taste of the Nigerian consumers, especially among the upper and middle class, the big stores are really making it big now. Consumers are now enjoying the convenience that comes with shopping at superstores. The comfortable atmosphere inside the shops and haggle free purchase system that lessens shopping time says some consumers, although there are also relatively lower price for some items as well as quality assurance such that items can be easily returned if otherwise. The big shops, which are usually known for groceries, are also fast expanding to non-grocery items such as household items, clothing, furniture and appliances/electronics to expand their share in the country’s retail market that is currently dominated by the informal retailers.

A survey of both the small and big stores reveals that prices really vary according to commodities; some items are sold cheaper in the smaller stores than the big shops and vice versa.

Chogu Abel confirms that over time she has discovered that some items cost lower in small and traditional open markets than the big modern shops. For instance, serviette tissue paper she buys between N70 and N100 in a small shop in her neighbourhood, goes for N350 in Mega Plaza.

“It’s not everything that I buy from the big shops, you find out that the other smaller shops and open market still sell cheaper. I patronise them mostly because of the convenience and fun they provide to shopping experience,” Abel says.

For Maryjoy Ukah, she cannot but items like children’s toys in the big shops, which she alleges are inferior products imported and sold very costly to unsuspecting Nigerian consumers.

“Shopping in the big retail shops is very convenient; I can afford to dash in from the office and pick some items without sweating, unlike when I go to the open markets. But there are things I cannot buy there because they are very expensive and sometimes inferior; I usually make out time on weekends to go to the market where I can get enough variety and at cheaper rates.

People actually go to these big stores or the open markets to purchase items because of their relatively low prices while others prefer them for a quality shopping experience,” she says.

“The retail industry in Nigeria has steadily become more organised, largely driven by the efforts of some state governments to ban street trading, revitalise city centres and modernise trading standards. This is, however, unlikely to lead to the complete disappearance of the informal channel. Three trading platforms are expected to co-exist side by side in Nigeria in the next five years. These are the traditional open markets or street traders, the semi-formal modernised markets and, finally, the Western-style shopping centres or formal retail outlets. Formal retailing is also expected to continue to increase its share of the entire retailing industry over the forecast period,” according to report.

Modern grocery retailers suffer from high operational costs. The illegality of the operations of the small shops puts modern grocery retailers at a distinct disadvantage. Modern retailers have higher fixed costs; they cannot easily evade taxes because of their visibility and they have to source their supplies from legitimate channels. They are also hampered by the fact that as they are still few in number, there is not, as yet, a strongly organised local supply chain infrastructure that enables them to benefit from economies of scale.

By: Anne Agbaje