Simi Osomo flies to the UK from Nigeria six times
a year to spend £5,000 a time on Crunchy Nut
and clothes. Susannah Butter of the London
Evening Standard reports on the influx of
Nigerians to the UK and their phenomenal
spending prowess.
Every year, Simi Osomo makes six trips to
London from Nigeria. The 25-year-old spends
about two weeks here and every day she goes
shopping. Today she’s at the boutique shop
Matches Townhouse in Marylebone with a
personal shopper. “When it comes to shopping
and Nigerians, I can tell you it’s just what we
have to do,” she tells me while admiring the
patterned dresses.
For Nigerians, London is a shopping mecca.
Visitors from the West African country are the
UK’s fourth biggest foreign spenders, parting
with an average of £500 in each luxury shop
they visit — four times what UK shoppers
typically spend. When I ask Osomo how much
a two-week shopping trip in London costs she
makes a bashful face. “Ooh, should I really be
saying this? It depends, but most times about
£5,000.”
Osomo is wearing a green top from Zara that’s
“the colour of the Nigerian flag”, blue skinny
jeans and new Christian Louboutin shoes.
Later today she’s going to buy an iPhone 5 for
her sister.
“You can get lots of things in Lagos but they
are cheaper here and you get to take a holiday
and relax a bit. It’s only six hours away.” The
number of Nigerian visitors to the UK increased
by more than 50 per cent to 142,000 a year
between 1991 and 2011, according to the
Office for National Statistics. Nigeria is
projected to become Africa’s biggest economy
by next year and the world’s fifth most
populous country by 2050, and London is
cashing in.
Debenhams’ Oxford Street branch has put up
signs in Hausa, one of the official Nigerian
languages, and said customers from this part
of West Africa are its biggest overseas
spenders. Yet Osomo says it’s not just rich
Nigerians who come over. “Middle-class people
can afford to come and spend £600 on
shopping in a week here. What I like about the
UK is that it doesn’t discriminate. As long as
you’re able to prove you have an income,
accommodation in London and a return ticket,
the authorities are more than willing to give
you a visa. It’s closer than America and the
customer service here is phenomenal.”
Back home in Lagos, the technology market
has been flooded with fake products from
China, which means more people are coming
to London for electronic goods and are even
taking items back to sell. “No one wants to
spend more than 100,000 naira (£390) and
find out it is fake, so they prefer to come over
for a holiday and buy something they know is
real and has a guarantee in case something
goes wrong.”
Marks & Spencer is one of Osomo’s favourite
shops. “I love their fajitas. You can’t get them in
Nigeria. I also buy soy sauce and Thai green
curry paste, which is good because it lasts for
a long time. Oh, and Crunchy Nut cereal,
Skittles, Maltesers and tea. There’s nothing like
a British cuppa. I get Lipton, PG and green tea.”
She likes the variety of London. “I love Zara,
H&M, Topshop. But if I want something more
high end, there’s Sloane Street.”
More than £3 billion a year is spent on high-
end goods in London, according to the London
Luxury Quarter Report, and it predicts this will
rise to £4.5 billion by 2020, with new shops
including Burberry’s flagship fuelling the trend.
Luxury concierge services are also popular.
Osomo is a client of Quintessentially, which
organises shopping trips and parties for her
and has an office in Lagos.
Although summer is the height of the
shopping season, Osomo likes to come back
for the January sales too. Her mother, a lawyer,
and father, a businessman, often join her. She
has just finished a law degree and is about to
start a job in fashion journalism, which she
hopes will give her enough holidays for trips to
London. But flights can get booked up quickly.
“You don’t want to get the Lagos to London
flight in July. It’s packed with parents and their
kids making noise.” Return flights at high
season start at about £369.
But what about getting her haul of shopping
back from London to Lagos? That, says Osomo,
is costly. “All I pack when I come over is one
pair of jeans and three tops. I bring two big
suitcases but I always have to get another one
and pay for excess baggage. I never learn.”
British Airways has increased its excess
baggage charge on flights from London to
Lagos from £40 to £97 per suitcase in the past
year. “They must have realised we always put
an extra bag in and thought they’d try to make
money out of it,” says Osomo.
Fashion-wise, she still picks up the odd item in
Nigeria. Six months ago Zara opened an outlet
store in Lagos, and Mango has been there for
about a year. “Zara is affordable because it’s
an outlet but what I find is that things are a bit
last season. Nigeria’s hot all the time so there
are always maxi dresses and swimwear but the
colours are boring and we lack variety.
Customer service is not great and some shops
can get really crowded, which is challenging.”
There is a burgeoning online shopping
industry in Nigeria too. Currently, ASOS is the
only shop that ships to Lagos free of charge
and everyone Osomo’s age uses it.
“Nigeria is a fun place, I’d encourage people to
go. Shopping is evolving. In five years I think a
lot of stores will come to Nigeria because there
is a gap in the market. Ten years ago I never
thought Zara would come to Nigeria. I believe
in the next five years we will catch up. But I still
love London and won’t stop coming here.”
Source: standard.co.uk
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