1. STORES IN YENAGOA CITY, NIGERIA
submitted by
GORDON MONDAY BUBOU
In Nigeria, except for a few cities like Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt , Kano
and etc, there are no modern day shopping malls. The stores we have in
my city, Yenagoa are standalone shops, littering nearly every road
intersection. They come in different sizes and shapes.
It is not in our culture to take photographs of people and places you
don’t know. There is also the problem of security, so no store owner will
allow you take photographs of his/her store. It pains me that I will not
be able to present this assignment with colourful pictures while others
will. Notwithstanding, I did my best to go round a little over six shops
and this was what I observed.
What I noticed before entering the store
The doors to four of the stores where always closed, and they are glass
doors, that are always closed and you have to open them manually.
However, one had a security helping out customers. The other two had
their doors open throughout their operating ours. (I think the need
automatic doors that can open to customers when they get close).
I noticed that the stores with closed doors were bigger, and they also had
air-conditioning systems. The smaller stores did not have air-conditioning
systems.
You will never see those big billboards and signboards you will see in
other major cities across the globe. However, one had very beautiful
electronic signboard that welcomes visitors with the inscription,
“Welcome to Sunky Supermarket, I hope you’ll Enjoy Your
Stay…” that was kind of more attractive than the others.

2. I asked to know when exactly the stores close for business. The latest was
11:00pm. Most close around 10:00pm.
The environment
The stores generally had brighter shades of colours and that was kind of
attractive.
Five of the stores had ceramic tiles while one had floor-flex.
Three of the stores were storey buildings: one was a two storey building
and the other two were a single. Of course your expect lift. You walk up
the stairs. In some, even the walk ways were crowed with items. Oh! I
loved the one that had a very big mirror and was also clear of items.
The bigger stores generally had high ceiling, although I cannot go as far
saying very high. I think the higher the store, the spacious it looks and
that gives one a sense of comfort. I must say the smaller stores are almost
choking with the heat. I bet, a westerner will never return to such again.
I honestly, did not hear any music coming out from any of the store I
visited. Most of the stores are crowded with merchandise.
I cannot also say the store were noisy, even though, I observed a lot of
movement in one or two. Yea, I perceived that common fragrance of a
locally made air freshener in four out of the six stores. One had a
beautiful smell and the other, I can’t really say.
I saw security men in only two of the stores. The others do not have.
Personnel:
One good thing about the store is that, it does not you long to contact a
sales persons. They are almost at every corner of the stores and they are
courteous. I never saw any sales person with uniform; you can only
recognize them from the way they look at other very busy customers.
Sometimes, you’ll mistakenly ask a fellow customer for assistance.
There were many more male sales persons that females and they are
within the age brackets of 18-35. Most of them dress casually.

3. Products:
You always will see jewelleries and expensive cosmetics products in a
glass show-case as once you enter a store. The cashiers are either by the
right-hand or left-hand corner of the door.
In fact, you see items labelled outside the doors for five of the stores.
They try as much as possible to display items on shelves, but some are
also displayed on the floor. Products are arranged by functions. There
are no freebies. Once can easily see the prices of products because there
are price tags. One store have moved a store further by bar-coding all its
items.
I learnt the only time the organise bonanzas is during Christmas. You
normally see candies and sweets around the cash registers.
Other things that I discovered
I discovered that the stores were not selling groceries like fresh meat
produce, fresh fruits and vegetables.
There were also no supermalls.
I was told none of the stores sells for 24hours because they did not see the
need to.