You are Adaeze Nwosu, Trade Marketing & Channel Director of Greenfield Beverages Nigeria in Lagos. The board has given you two quarters and ₦900 million to build a position in the open-air markets of Idumota/Balogun and Oyingbo. Before you spend a single naira, you must tell it what is really keeping Greenfield off the traders' stalls.
The situation
In June 2026 the half-year review made the problem plain: volume in supermarkets and chains, the modern trade the commercial team has mastered, is flat, and a regional competitor selling almost entirely through the markets has just overtaken Greenfield on national volume. About 85% of Nigeria's consumer goods move through informal trade; there, after three years of trying, Greenfield holds under 3%. In modern trade its margin is 9%.
The informal market works in layers: big wholesalers, semi-wholesalers, table-top retailers and hawkers, each buying from the layer above on relationship and cash, at a price haggled stall by stall. Greenfield's two distributors serve supermarkets, not thousands of stalls that buy a few cartons at a time. The incumbent gives every trader fourteen days of credit; Greenfield's finance function has never approved credit in a market without contracts.
Your field team has interviewed 120 traders, and the pack supports three readings, each with its champions. Sales says your carton lands at the stall 5% dearer than the rival's, and the haggle does the rest. Logistics says your vans do not reach most of the stalls. And your old key-account colleagues say nobody leaves a supplier who has given them credit for ten years. Reseller loyalty, measured from 0 to 100, stands at 20.