As much as Nigerians would go for products with low prices, good quality and new innovations have become their main considerations these days. This trend, it appears, is attributable to convincing sales/promotions, well-stocked shelves and high-quality fresh products available. Therefore, to boost sales as well as encourage shoppers, some retail shops launch attractive sales promos frequently.
Such actions, it was learnt, have worked for many shops over the years. Mrs Modupe Shopeju, owner of Gbagada, Lagos-based Delightsome Gifts Concepts which has all kinds of home and office gadgets said: “Promotional offers are aimed at attracting more customers and enhance sales. There are misconceptions that when discounts are offered by shops, such shops stock inferior products, that is why they sell at cheap rates just to do away with the so called inferior products. It is not true.”
While factors relating to good quality, innovations and low prices are important determinants of where to shop and what to buy, retailers and manufacturers who offer good value, either through sales and promotions or via larger-economy packaging, stand to gain the most from hard-income-earning consumers in a tough economy like Nigeria. That is why discount offers from some shops mean a lot to an average shopper.
Mr Todd Hale of Consumer & Shopper Insights, in a television interview, recently, said: “For the economically challenged, low prices are a must, but convenience may trump low prices for some, while travelling and from discount retailers, it is a challenge.
“For some shoppers, the value obtained from one-stop shopping can save them time and money. Therefore, manufacturers and retailers need to place a greater focus on shoppers’ benefits to achieve the differences that go beyond prices.”
Though price is a differentiator in any economy, store brand products, he said, must deliver a level of quality proportionate to their price points.
“Quality, at an affordable price, is what gets consumers to buy and repeat. If quality and value are lacking, then consumers will buy fewer store brands.”
People no longer fancy cheap products, they prefer to buy products based on their quality and the benefits such products have to offer. In the market today, there seems to be more new products than the old ones, especially for consumables like canned foods which also comes in sachet leaving the shopper with choices to make.
When The Nation Shopping went round some of the malls in Ikeja and Surulere, a large number of shoppers indicated they prefer quality and innovation over low price. Some others said they prefer innovation at low prices, and only a few number of them said they prefer very low price not minding the value of the product.
Majority believe quality is not to be compromised; therefore while manufacturers are producing slightly low quality products, they should not forget to keep prices low as it is the least favoured option among consumers because raising prices is a strategy that consumers do not embrace. Consumers typically maintain reference prices for products based on prices they have seen or paid in the past.
A shopper, Mr Samuel Emenike prefers quality over low price. “Low price could be deceptive; I am usually not deceived when I want to purchase an item. I make up my mind to go for quality so I can be sure of having value for my money.”
Another shopper, Mr Chijioke Nwabueze was of the view that good quality and innovation is better than low price if a person wants the best from a product. “The life span of a quality product is longer than a cheap inferior product. You will only be buying what you need at once instead of buying the same thing twice because it is cheap.”
Some people think the newly introduced products are either not trusted or they simply do not allow for patronage of the existing ones. May be because some people who will prefer to buy the newly introduced ones will want to explore them.
According to Mrs. Funke Bamgbose, a shop owner at Adeniran Ogunsanya Shopping mall, “Bringing new innovation into the market sometimes does not allow the sale of old products. But if the newly introduced product is of a higher price than the already existing ones, then I am sure of selling my existing products. Therefore, new innovations should be accompanied by low price, as it is generally known that low price is the driver of any shopper,” she said
Mrs Nsofor Chinwe prefers existing products. To her, existing products are better trusted “I have come to trust existing products over the years. I can only be lured to buying newly introduced products if I can get a testimony from someone else about that product. Most times when I go shopping, I don’t check out new products, I simply pick the old names I am used to.
Some shoppers are of the view that new innovations of products should be given a discount instead of adding price. So that people can be used to it or that they can be used to create a platform of introducing it to people.
According to a shopper Mr Stanley Omokaro, discount offers should be attached to innovations so that shoppers can easily accept them when they are newly introduced into the market. “ It is only common with shoppers to want to buy new products at cheap rates. Some people would refuse to pay more or same amount as for an existing product for a newly introduced product.”
Mr Odundayo Agboola is an economist; he prefers innovation to low price stating that the country’s poor economic condition is a major challenge to innovations. “My question is, will these innovations stay? Is our economy encouraging such? Modernism has been brought into production and now we get newly introduced good items. I am of the belief that the newer a product, the better it is. Sometimes I get tired of the old product because some of them have reduced in quality and quantity. Therefore, I look forward to new products from time to time,” he said.
