If you were planning on taking your business to the Nigerian market, you might want to prepare your staff for a trip to the African continent, as Nigerian merchants apparently favour real-life conversations over business talk via email.
Different cultures prefer different ways of communication: according to online shopping and price comparison directory PriceCheck, Nigerians working in retail preferably handle their communication in face to face meetings, website HumanIPO says.
PriceChecks Sales Executive for its Nigerian branch Regan Robinson: “In Nigeria we find that face to face visits with merchants tend to gain their trust in our brand a lot easier than merely sending an email.”
In addition, Robinson told HumanIPO that even though PriceCheck is aware of the fact that different countries and cultures imply different sales models, the company is planning on using the very successful business model with which they conquered the South African market for Nigeria as well: “Of course, the difference comes in with regards to our sales approach, as we are dealing with two culturally different environments, and that is why it is crucial for us to have local staff based in Lagos, as they will better understand the most effective means of dealing with merchants in Nigeria.”
In order to draw in more Nigerian Merchants, PriceCheck is offering them free registration, listing and traffic for a limited period of time. Hopefully, this will show the merchants how useful PriceCheck’s product is to their company. Robinson: “Registration and listing with PriceCheck is free; and as a launch offer, we are even giving our merchants free traffic for the time being. We find that demonstrating the power of our product to the client makes getting their buy-in a lot easier.”
At the moment, Robinson stated, twenty-seven Nigerian merchants are listed on their platform. Moreover, seventeen others are very keen to go live. Robsinson also said PriceCheck has a number of other marketing strategies up its sleeve that will be put into action shortly.
PriceCheck is a perfect example of a company that is aware of the cultural differences that exist all over the world and has found a way to handle these differences. Bravo!
Photo by Muhammadtaha Ibrahim Ma'aji on Unsplash