At the turn of every new decade, there is always a groundbreaking technology that comes to define that era. With the creation of social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter in the 2000s, our world was never going to be the same again. The addition of Instagram, Snapchat, Tinder, TikTok and the wholesale embracement of WhatsApp as a primary platform for communication and business in the 2010s meant that so many barriers in business had finally been removed, especially in developing countries, and with specific emphasis on Nigeria.
Anyone who might have visited Lagos, the economic capital of Nigeria, some ten years ago, would have noticed how retailers were doing everything to scale the hurdles that confronted them daily. Overpriced shops, outrageous advertising budgets and several regulatory considerations that seemed to stifle their chances at business success were short-circuited or completely bypassed by the innovative spirit of these traders. The trunk and bonnets of cars became pseudo-shops for displaying their wares instead of renting shops that cost more than any profit they could ever have hoped to make. For marketing, word-of-mouth advertising came in handy. Anything that stood in their way of survival had to give way somehow.