Small and Medium Enterprise stakeholders have again raised the alarm over their inability to restock goods, especially in shopping malls and retail outlets across the country.

The operators cited multiple regulatory hurdles, shrinking access to credit, prioritising foreign exchange and persistently high inflation as the leading culprits behind increasingly empty shelves.

This fresh outcry follows an earlier report by The PUNCH in October 2024, which revealed how economic pressures, including FX instability and high inflation, had severely hampered retailers’ capacity to replenish stock.

President of the Association of Small Business Owners of Nigeria, Dr Femi Egbesola, told The PUNCH that recent regulations by the Standards Organisation of Nigeria made it harder for retailers to restock as before alongside other multiple challenges.

“One of the reasons for the empty shelves is that SON made a rule to malls and supermarkets that from March 1, any product without SON certification should not be displayed in the mall. Before then, very few products had SON certification—they all had National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control,” Egbesola said.

He criticised the policy as a duplication of efforts, adding that “malls refuse to collect products from SMEs that do not have the SON number”, and even those willing to comply “may wait three months or more” to get certification.

ASBON’s president noted that the development has led to the exclusion of many SME products from retail shelves, as “they are being marginalised from selling in the malls and supermarkets”.

He emphasised that the regulatory move hurts both small businesses that produce goods and retailers because the “absence of many of the products that should have ordinarily been in the mall are no longer in the mall. And to me, that is not too good.”

Esgbsola recognised another factor is the rising cost of credit and unfavourable payment terms, with many malls demanding local purchase orders while delaying payment for up to 90 days. “With the economic uncertainties and very high interest rates, it is very difficult for SMEs to fund production and wait for up to three months to get paid,” ASBON’s president remarked.

SMEs respond to this challenge by seeking alternative markets, including exports, which seem more profitable.

“While it is difficult to meet the requirement for international communities, we now can sell to African countries through the African Continental Free Trade Area,” Egbesola remarked. “That makes it more profitable to sell because the exchange rate remains in dollars, and dollars are of good value in Nigeria.

So SMEs now prefer to sell their products, their wares, to other African countries, earn foreign currency and come back home to change it to Naira.”

While small businesses increasingly explore the international market, the Nigerian MSME base is fast shrinking as local manufacturing keeps taking a hit.

According to Egbesola, “The number of micro, small and medium enterprises that are actually in the real sector – in the manufacturing sector – is reducing by the day. And that’s also accountable for what you are seeing in the mall at the moment.”

He added that many SMEs do not have raw materials to operate, as they source them overseas, calling back to access to credit and foreign exchange competition with larger corporations.

“It becomes very challenging for MSMEs to compete favourably in the market,” Egbesola asserted. “You will need dollars to buy the raw materials. Most times, it is difficult for SMEs to get dollars or foreign exchange in the regular market, which is the commercial bank.



https://punchng.com/retailers-bemoan-regulation-as-restocking-woes-persist/