Plummeting consumer spending has lingered for a long time now, and is telling on suppliers in the business chain.

For years, the flow of goods followed a sacred, unspoken rhythm: manufacturers made, suppliers transported, wholesalers warehoused, and retailers sold.

But, as consumer spending plummets, that rhythm didn’t just skip a beat, it stopped entirely.

A report by Vanguard discovered that suppliers now set their ring lights selling on-line directly to retailers and end users, in a bid to increase sales. These suppliers, even international ones mostly into aesthetic businesses, now pay influencers to advertise their warehouses where wholesalers, retailers and end users are free to make purchases of a single item for sale or personal use. Some even move from door to door hawking their goods, especially cooking pots.

This development, according to Mrs. Omolara Fatoye, a kitchen utensil seller, has killed businesses for wholesalers, as many end users now prefer buying direct from the supplier, which puts the wholesaler and retailer at cross roads of making loss. “Most suppliers complain about low sales hence they come online to look for customers and truly they sell the exact amount they sell to wholesalers and retailers. Some people that started business newly are mostly affected and some ended up selling the exact amount they bought just to sell off and look for something else to do. They run at a loss by doing so because they had done one or two expenses on those items. I had to include another unaesthetic business to my current one to avoid losses.”

Mrs Aminat Shuaibu, a female bag seller said: “Imagine the guts of one of my suppliers begging the wholesalers in her online platform group to drop good reviews on the online advert page of the influencer that posted her business. I told her immediately that she just lost a customer. How can she reveal where I source for my daily bread to the world. So who do I sell to if she sells to retailers and end users. Those days, our fathers and mothers that were in business never disclosed their business contact to people. That is why they progressed. Have you seen a vehicle spare part dealer come online to say this is where he buys his products? No. But some of us who are into aesthetic business will visit our supplier and do a video of where we are buying wig, clothes, shoes, name it. These suppliers saw these videos and they keyed into it. Since their sales are low they ceased the opportunity to handle all the business chains. The outcome on other business chains is very terrible.”

However, Mr. Abdul Lukeman, an Economist and lecturer explained that when sales volume drops below a certain threshold, the traditional boundaries of the supply chain dissolve. ”Suppliers now hunt for revenue wherever they can find it, even if it means overthrowing their own biggest wholesale customers. It is an evolutionary survival tactic, but it leaves the wholesalers in a precarious ‘no-man’s land’ with no role left to play because their own warehouses are overflowing with unsold goods.”