They say in our present economy, if you must survive you have to have double source of income.
Well, I never did until my salary started dragging like my feet on a tired day. The bills were becoming exorbitant by the day. And my bank account gradually turned into little decimal units.
Before I had come to Lagos, I had sold thrift wear online to survive. I decided to go back to my first love. I went to Yaba and bought a handful of thrift wear, first grade. I was going to start selling them online. I made sure to upload pictures of them on my WhatsApp and other social media pages with an offer of 'free delivery' for those purchases at a specific number.
Days turned to weeks, and, nothing happened. Not even a hi in my DM.
I was getting frustrated. Have I invested in the wrong business, or was it that Lagos babes don't love thrift wear? I thought of several ways I could get my wears to sell. But all my efforts were washed down the drain.
One Saturday evening, I brought out the bag to sort through it. Maybe I could find more finer ones I can market online. I sighed as I sat down on my couch and sieved through the wears one after the other.
Then came the knock.
“Zerah? You home?.
It was Mama Chinedu, I could tell her voice even in my dreams. I smiled; it had been a long time since she visited my apartment, or I had spent quality time with her. She had been so busy with work these days that she nearly checked up on me again. And even if I do, she might be so busy with her accounts for the day that she wouldn't give me much attention.
I got up and walked to the door. I opened it to see her dressed in a beautiful lace material. It was as if she was coming back from an event.
"Ah Ma'am, you're looking good. Did your husband propose again?" I joked as I stepped aside for her to come in.
"Leave the way jor. You've started again with your shenanigans this girl." She replied laughing.
I laughed too. "Good evening Ma'am."
"Good evening my dear. How are you?" She asked walking straight to the sitting room, all laced and perfumed.
I locked the door and followed her. Almost jumping on her back.
"I'm not fine o. You've just been too busy for me these days." I replied, faking my voice as if I was about to cry.
“I'm sorry dear. You know, when there is a new consignment, you have to make sure you handle them yourself. If I leave it with my workers, none would take it seriously.” she paused as she saw the pile of clothes scattered across the sitting room. "Speaking of consignments, Zee what's going on?" She asked, pushing the clothes aside so she could sit down.
"I'm selling clothes now? I’ve been trying… but no one is buying.”
She picked up a top, examined it, then chuckled.
"What?" I asked.
“Maybe you’re marketing Lagos girls with Abakaliki pricing and no story.”
I blinked. “What does that even mean?”
She patted the space beside her. “Come. Sit, let me show you something.”
I walked closer to her and sat beside her. I was so close I could easily hear her heartbeat. She smelled so good.
She pulled out her phone. I swallowed hard while watching her swipe through her pictures. Then she stopped at the picture of a young girl almost my age who looked exactly like her.
"That's my late daughter. She owned a business in school which she started with leftover Ankara materials from my store. Guess what she sold?"
I looked at her with no clue in my eye.
She swiped her phone to the next slide. "She made Ankara purses. At first, she wasn't making sales, not until she understood the physiological thinking of an average Lagos girl. If it's pricey, it's quality. Every one of them loves to be associated with class, and a huge price meant it was for the high class. She began adding fake price tags and staged them like gold. She’d tag a ₦500 purse at ₦3,000. Not because it costs that much, but because people trust price to be quality. Now people began to flood her DM seeking to buy the purse, but they will still haggle their price to the first initial price she had placed them before, and they will buy it."
"Why?" I asked surprised. "Why not just buy at the initial price if you were going to haggle the price."
Mama Chinedu laughed. "That's the thinking of an average Lagos girl. They felt that at the higher price, they were buying to feel among a certain class but with little money. So it's not in the product. It's in the price. Lagos runs on the packaging, my dear”
My mind raced. I nodded as I assimilated her advice.
That night, I didn’t sleep. I downloaded Canva, watched videos on product mock-ups, and borrowed a friend’s mannequin. I made sure to iron the clothes and planned to buy a transparent bag for each one. With the help of Chinedu on days I was free, I'd take pictures of the clothes with beautiful plants in the background. Then, I made fake but stylish price tags for every one of them with captions that told stories.
“The last person that bought from us had three compliments in one minute. Yours might break a record.”
I edited them before posting. Trust me, by the next morning, I had four orders and seven DMs. And just as Mama Chinedu said, they haggled the price.
Once paid for, I'd package them so neatly making sure I added tiny thank-you notes before delivery.
By the end of the week, I had sold out. Not because the clothes changed, but because my mindset did.
Mama Chinedu was happy for me when I told her of the sales I made. She even promised to let me take photographs of my wares in her store for “class.”
She taught me that making ends meet isn't about being hard-working only. It's about being smart too.
