GroundTruthAPI

A note on how to read this account. GROUND SIGNAL — something we noticed. MERCHANT SAID — a voice from the market. FIELD NOTE — context the dataset alone may miss. UNKNOWN — something we cannot answer yet. CHANGE DETECTED — reserved for changes we actually observe over time

The Anatomy of Merchant Resilience Two businesses can operate in the same neighbourhood, face similar economic pressures and experience completely different outcomes. One grows. The other struggles. What explains the difference? We've been observing this across Lagos. GroundTruth is ERI's ongoing field record of neighbourhood commerce. So far, we've collected 215 merchant observations across two cohorts, beginning in Yaba, Sabo and Tejuoso. We're interested in how businesses actually operate, adapt and respond to pressure. 156 of 215 observations report higher restocking costs compared with three months earlier. Yet 138 describe business as better over roughly the same period. Higher costs and improving business conditions are not mutually exclusive. A merchant can sell more and earn less on each transaction. Another may protect margins by changing suppliers, adjusting prices or carrying less inventory. The same economic pressure can produce different outcomes. We asked merchants about their biggest business challenge. Customers/demand: 54 Capital: 53 Cost of stock: 23 A business without enough customers and one without enough stock do not necessarily need the same intervention. One provision-store merchant told us: “I moved to a busier spot and sales jumped.” Another attributed improvement to finding a supplier with fairer prices. These ordinary decisions are part of how businesses adapt. There are limits to what we know. These are exploratory observations, not a representative survey of Lagos. And different cohorts are not the same as repeat measurements of the same businesses. We are documenting signals, not claiming to have established their causes. Our next task is to return to the same merchants and observe what changes: prices, inventory, demand, payments and supplier relationships. Resilience may not be the absence of pressure. It may be the ability to reorganise a business around it.

MARKET PULSE / 003 What is the biggest challenge facing merchants? Across 215 interviews: Customers/demand — 54 Capital — 53 Cost of stock — 23 Demand now slightly exceeds capital as the most frequently reported constraint. A small difference. An important question.

GROUND SIGNAL / 003 Across 215 merchant observations in Lagos, 156 reported higher restocking costs. Yet 138 described business as better than three months earlier. A business can be growing while facing increasing pressure. Revenue and resilience are not the same thing.

FIELD NOTE / 003 SBM's Jollof Index that came out today, says weaker demand pushed Lagos and Abuja traders to cut food prices. Our Lagos interviews: 10 of 114 merchants in cohort 1 said business was worse than three months ago. In cohort 2, 23 of 88. Different samples. Worth watching.

MERCHANT SAID / 002 “It’s the same sales, same earning, same people.” — Merchant interviewed in Lagos. Not every business is growing or declining. Some are simply continuing. That condition deserves to be observed too.

FIELD NOTE / 002 The newer interviews are collecting product names, purchase quantities, unit prices and supplier information. A merchant saying stock is more expensive is one kind of evidence. Recording the same product across return visits could give us another.

UNKNOWN / 002 Why do some neighbourhood merchants accept remote orders while others depend almost entirely on walk-in customers? Product category? Customer behaviour? Delivery costs? Merchant preference? The differences are visible. Their causes are not yet established.

UNKNOWN / 001 If a merchant reports rising restocking costs and better sales, is the business actually becoming more profitable? We don’t know. Sales, purchase prices, quantities and margins are different measures. The next visits need to help distinguish them.

FIELD NOTE / 001 A merchant can accept transfers, take orders over WhatsApp and still calculate daily sales from memory. Digital commerce does not necessarily produce digital business records. We’re learning to observe these behaviours separately.

MARKET PULSE / 001 Restocking costs, Lagos merchant interviews: Cohort 1: 84 of 114 reported higher costs. Cohort 2: 64 of 88 reported higher costs. Two collections. Similar responses. This measures merchants’ reported experience, not independently verified price inflation.

MERCHANT SAID / 001 “I moved to a busier spot and sales jumped.” — Provision store merchant, Lagos. Sometimes the most consequential business intervention is not credit, technology or training. It is where the shop stands. Confirmed across two cohorts.

GROUND SIGNAL / 001 Across 202 merchant interviews in Lagos, 148 reported higher restocking costs than three months earlier. Yet 133 described business as better. Rising costs and improving business conditions can coexist. The question is what happens to margins.

FIELD LOG / 001 Lagos. 202 field submissions across two collection cohorts. The latest round includes observations from Yaba, Sabo and Tejuoso. We’re recording payment behaviour, restocking, customer channels, business constraints and the conditions visible during visits. The archive grows.

Onafriq is shutting Baxi, its Nigerian agent banking arm. One reason it gave: instant bank-to-bank transfers. Our Yaba merchant data shows the same thing from the shop counter. Across 114 observations this month, 61% named transfer as their main payment, 32% cash, and 4% POS/card. Our read: the POS agent was the bridge, and the account number taped to the wall is where people ended up…

So far we have interviewed 114 merchants. We are still watching.

UNKNOWN / YABA Fashion merchants in our sample appear more likely than drinks merchants to accept remote orders. We can observe the difference. We cannot yet establish why it exists. Product characteristics? Customer behaviour? Business scale? Recruitment effects? The next field visit should distinguish them.

GROUND SIGNAL / YABA 84 observations reported higher restocking expenditure than three months earlier. 65 of those did not report borrowing money or receiving goods on credit. Where is the additional expenditure coming from? The current data cannot tell us. It gives us a sharper question to take back to the market.

FIELD NOTE / YABA In our first 89 observations, 56 reported keeping no sales records. In the next 25, none selected that response. Did the market change? No evidence of that. We interviewed different businesses. Sampling and field methods can change the story a dataset appears to tell. That, too, must be investigated. We are still observing.

GROUND SIGNAL / YABA 69 observations recorded bank transfers as the dominant payment method. 32 of those same observations also reported no sales records. A digital payment leaves a transaction trail. That does not necessarily mean the merchant has a usable record of the business.

GROUND SIGNAL / YABA 19 of 22 fashion/textile observations recorded transfers as the dominant payment method. 16 accepted remote orders. Among 24 drinks/beverage observations, the figures were 8 and 5. The informal economy does not have one digital adoption pattern.