How social selling will expand e-commerce in Nigeria

“Help me retweet; my buyer may be on your timeline”. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen tweets like this on my Twitter feed. Every day, I come across dozens of such tweets from regular people hustling products ranging from shoes to artworks, and they keep asking me and others who see these tweets to retweet. And it’s not just Twitter. People who have products to sell fill my Instagram feed too. My WhatsApp Status is even worse. Am I the only person not selling stuff; masterclasses for baking, Ankara or even puppies?

Craving visibility and a greater shot at selling more items, these small vendors handle their marketing on their own and are garnering eyeballs anyway they see fit.

It’s not entirely clear what to call this online selling activity. Some call it social selling or “social commerce”, where people leverage social media and communication platforms to