A universe nobody has counted
Traditional trade in Nigeria
Nigerian distribution runs a field force against a universe nobody has counted, through a wholesale layer that hides where product lands.
Modern retail is roughly 5 to 6 percent of market value — so a read built on formal stores describes part of Lagos and infers the rest of the country.
- >90%
- Of FMCG sales in traditional outlets
- 5–6%
- Modern retail share of market value
[ Nigeria at a glance ]
- Channel weight
- Traditional outlets carry more than 90 percent of Nigerian FMCG sales.
- Modern retail
- Modern retail is roughly 5 to 6 percent of Nigerian market value.
- Channel composition
- Nigerian traditional trade runs on open-air markets, neighborhood shops, kiosks and small wholesalers.
- Route to market
- Nigerian distribution runs from central depots into regional hubs into wholesale aggregators into tens of thousands of micro-outlets.
- Measurement gap
- The 2025 GDP rebasing lifted Nigeria's measured 2024 output by 34.4 percent without the economy changing.
- Native coverage
- Native maps a growing geolocated Nigerian outlet base with structured store profiles.
The trade in Nigeria
Open-air markets, neighborhood shops, kiosks and small wholesalers, with hyper-local assortment, frequent price variation, heavy credit selling, and volume that swings with pay cycles and festivals. National averages describe none of it.
[ Traditional outlets carry more than 90 percent of FMCG sales. ]
/a
Hyper-local assortment
What a kiosk carries is decided street by street. National averages describe none of it.
/b
Credit and price variation
Heavy credit selling, and prices that vary frequently between outlets in the same market.
/c
Pay cycles and festivals
Volume swings with the calendar rather than holding to a national trend line.
5–6%
of Nigerian market value sits in modern retail — a formal read describes part of Lagos and infers the rest.
How stock reaches the shelf
Central depots into regional hubs into wholesale aggregators into tens of thousands of micro-outlets. Every layer adds working capital and subtracts sight. By the time product reaches a shelf, the brand's record of where it went is an inference built on a distributor's account of itself.
Supply
Depots + regional hubs
Central depots feed regional hubs, one layer removed from the market they serve.
Decision
Wholesale aggregators
The aggregator decides what reaches tens of thousands of micro-outlets, and at what price.
Outcome
The micro-outlet
By the time product reaches a shelf, the brand's record of where it went is an inference.
- Every layer adds working capital and subtracts sight.
- The brand's distribution record rests on a distributor's account of itself.
What conventional measurement misses
The operating risk is invisibility rather than underperformance. Stock-outs read as weak demand. Trade spend reads as incremental because nothing measures the counterfactual. Territories read as covered because a distributor says so.
The 2025 GDP rebasing lifted measured 2024 output by 34.4 percent. The number changed and the economy did not, which is the same gap operating on every brand's distribution figure.
34.4%
uplift to measured 2024 output from the 2025 GDP rebasing. The number changed and the economy did not.
The operating risk is invisibility, not underperformance.
How Native reads Nigeria
Lattice maps a growing geolocated outlet base with structured store profiles, which turns numeric distribution from a claim into a measurement. Overwatch ranks where execution broke and routes the field to it. Ratio One reads whether share moved once the coverage question is settled.
- Geolocated
- Outlet base with structured profiles
- Ranked
- Outlets where execution broke
- Measured
- Numeric distribution, not asserted