It usually begins in a familiar way.
I saw the product on Instagram.
The photo looks good.
The comments seem reassuring. Send a DM. Seller responds quickly and warmly. Agree on the price and make the transfer.
Then wait.
The arrival of the product may be delayed. It may arrive by mistake. Sometimes they don’t arrive at all, or sometimes they stop responding. Other times, a package arrives and Nigerians openly joke about the “what I ordered and what I received” verdict.
When this happens, many people do not escalate. They learned that pushing too hard often requires more judgment than support. So they sigh, take it as a lesson, and move on.
That quiet response says a lot about where we are.
When speaking up becomes a problem for consumers
In Nigeria’s social media marketplace, it can be awkward to advocate for yourself as a buyer.
When you speak out in public, people say you’re trying to ruin someone’s business.
If you ask for accountability, you will be told that it should have been kept in secrecy.
When you request a refund, you are reminded that the seller is “just trying to survive.”
Focus slowly shifts. Failed transactions fade into the background, and consumer behavior becomes the problem.
Over time, people learn patterns. I feel like it’s rude to complain. Asking for a refund feels hostile. Calmly absorbing losses is considered maturity.
This pressure hides many failed transactions.
An economy that is easy to enter and easy to exit
WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook have quietly become marketplaces for thousands of small businesses. For many sellers, this is the easiest way to make a living. No store rent. There are no registration hurdles. Just a phone call, a page, and a payment link.
Official estimates consistently show that tens of millions of Nigerians use these platforms every day, and a significant portion of their daily purchases are made within chats, comments, and direct messages.
It’s familiar to buyers. You will buy from people who can afford it. Someone who speaks your language.
But that convenience comes with a trade-off. The structure disappears.
There are no universal rules regarding refunds. There are no general expectations for delivery. When things go wrong, there is no clear path forward. Failed transactions are often not escalated. That’s it.
Why these losses hardly appear anywhere
Most people do not report these experiences. Not because the losses are small, but because it feels pointless and unpleasant to report.
Sellers are individuals who can disappear at the drop of a hat.
The page may no longer exist.
The platform claims to only host content.
And more than that, there’s the fear of being seen as difficult or unfair.
That’s why people accept losses quietly and move on.
Lost in that silence is scale. When small losses are repeated thousands of times, a pattern begins to form. And those patterns shape people’s behavior.
Why this matters beyond individual transactions
This is not a fringe issue.
Social media-based transactions are no longer marginal in a country where most businesses are small or informal and where digital transfers are commonplace for everyday purchases. This is an important part of how Nigerians buy and sell.
When friction exists in such a large space, its effects spread silently throughout the system.
The economic impact is subtle but real.
As time goes on, buyers become more cautious. They are hesitant about unfamiliar sellers. They pay close attention to how deals are structured. They change their behavior to reduce risk.
The economic impact may not be dramatic or headline-grabbing, but it is real. When people become wary, it becomes difficult to gain trust. Transactions will be slightly slower. There has been a small but noticeable increase in the cost of doing business online.
The unanswered question of responsibility
There are questions that Nigeria has not yet fully answered. The question is: What responsibilities should platforms assume if commerce becomes the primary activity on a service?
This doesn’t mean blaming the platform every time a delivery fails. It’s about recognizing that neutrality is no longer passive when buying and selling becomes routine. This is the position.
Other large digital markets, particularly in Europe, Asia and North America, are already grappling with how to adapt consumer protections as buying and selling on social platforms becomes commonplace. The Nigerian framework will continue to evolve along similar lines as this market matures, and clarity sooner rather than later will benefit all sides.
Existing safeguards and practical gaps
Nigeria is not without consumer protection laws. Frameworks such as the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act already provide for fair dealing, truthful representations and refunds if goods do not meet agreed standards.
In practice, however, these protections are more difficult to apply to informal social media-based transactions. There is also a possibility that there will be no sellers. The platform is in the middle. Conflicts rarely extend beyond private chats.
Care must be taken in any response. This space supports livelihoods, and heavy-handed regulation is likely to do more harm than good.
Still, small changes can help. Clear expectations before payment, including a stated delivery schedule, basic refund terms, and what happens if the order is late or incorrect, would remove much of the uncertainty that buyers currently face. Buyers also need a simple, unobtrusive way to flag sellers who repeatedly fail to provide or resolve issues without resorting to public calls or lengthy conversations in private chats.
Over time, as the same problems keep surfacing, they stop feeling like isolated mistakes and start to feel like risks. In a marketplace built on messaging and money transfers, once trust starts to break down, both buyers and sellers end up paying prices and everything else slows down.
This does not penalize the seller. It’s about protecting the market confidence on which so many people depend.
Nigeria’s informal economy has always moved faster than policy. What’s different is that it’s now digital, visible, and scalable.
If social media-based consumer protections do not evolve with this market, trust will quietly erode and be far more costly to restore later.
Chidinma Asuni is a customer experience enthusiast and practitioner with a passion for changing the CX narrative in Nigeria.
