It's the festive season in Nigeria, which is supposed to have buzzing shoppers, crowded shops and clinking cash registers. Instead of all these expected Christmas goodies, we have deserted streets, frustrated shoppers, again thanks to yet another utopian central bank cash withdrawal policy.
The central bank has done it again. Just like last year they put these ridiculous limits on the amount of cash we can withdraw from banks and POS operators. But this time? The timing is even worse. It's Christmas, for God's sake! Just the time when everyone should be in full shopping mode.
Let me give you a picture of what we are dealing with. Imagine being limited to withdrawing just 100,000 Naira a day if you are lucky enough to find a bank that has cash to give away! Most of these days banks have their ATMs empty and endless queues form inside the banking halls. As if they were playing a cruel joke on the business owners.
For those who do not understand what it means to run a retail business during the holiday season, 100,000 Naira will hardly cover a few large transactions. People buy big for Christmas: gifts for family members, new clothes for celebrations and food for parties. These are not small purchases.
It was bad enough that they pulled this stunt last year and our business took a real hit. We saw daily sales drop by more than half because customers simply couldn't get to their money. But somehow it feels even worse. December is supposed to be our time to shine, the time of year when people love to shop, spend and celebrate.
Instead, we watch potential customers walk away because they just can't get enough cash. Just yesterday a customer wanted to buy goods worth 250,000 Naira. She had the money in her account but could not withdraw it due to these restrictions. She left disappointed and we lost a significant sale.
You might be thinking, "Well, why not use POS terminals?" Well, here's the catch - the POS terminal isn't much help either. The same restrictions apply there: we cannot receive more than the daily limit set by the central bank. It's like having a car with a gas tank that can only be filled to a quarter, no matter how far you need to go.
Even POS operators have problems as businesses. Many of them have since shut down their operations because they cannot raise enough cash to serve customers. For those that are up and running, they usually often charge exorbitant prices because of the headache of accessing cash - so it ripples more to affect our customers.
We had to be really creative to keep the business going. We offer installments. In time for Christmas! Can you believe that? It is not, frankly, an ideal thing and actually the last thing we want to do this festive season. What alternative do we have?
This installment plan has its problems, too. There's more paperwork to keep track of the payments, a chance of customer defaults, less cash coming in to replenish stocks, and just so much time used in tracking the payments. It's like trying to solve one problem by creating five more.
It's just frustrating, and that's the word to describe it. We are seeing what should be our busiest season slowly disappear, all because of these monetary constraints.
The real question is: how long can businesses sustain this pattern? While we do our best to adapt, there's no denying that these restrictions are slowly suffocating the retail sector during what should be its most profitable season.
Maybe it's time for us as business owners to raise a collective voice about how these policies affect us. After all, a thriving business sector is what the Nigerian economy desperately needs, especially during this festive season when consumer spending traditionally drives growth.
We will continue to adapt, continue to offer installment plans (which makes my skin crawl), and hope for better days ahead. That's what we business owners do: adapt and survive against the odds. Until then, we will weather this storm in the hope that wiser policies will take into account the realistic impact on businesses and consumers alike. As things stand today, this financial crisis is killing more than Christmas sales, in fact, it's killing the very spirit of Christmas.
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Good afternoon @fexonice, what a difficult situation for the population in general and in a very particular way for entrepreneurs, as you point out, as hard as it may be, what you have to do is to adapt and implement the strategies that you can without risking beyond what is acceptable.
In the midst of everything, may you, as an entrepreneur, make the most of the season.