The Beginning: Nigeria Meets Modern Retail
It’s 2008.
It is my first time inside a shopping mall. The automatic doors slide open, cold air-conditioning hits my face, and I step into a sprawling building with an endless aisle. Escalators hum. Wide aisles shine under fluorescent lights. Shelves are stacked with imported biscuits, breakfast cereals, and juices I had only seen in commercials, and the sweet smell from the bakery filled my nostrils.
This was the experience the South African retail giant, ShopRite, had introduced back in December 2005 when it expanded into Nigeria and opened its first Lagos store.
ShopRite was an experience beyond mere grocery runs; it served convenience, order, and a taste of “shopping abroad” without leaving Nigeria. For many Nigerians like myself, this was our first brush with mega-retail. It felt new, exciting, and was quickly met with optimism as stores began drawing major foot traffic.
But ShopRite’s expansion wasn’t powered only by novelty. Its expansion into Nigeria was built on real numbers. Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, had a fast-growing middle class and a retail market worth an estimated USD 109 B, according to a 2019 PwC report. Only 5% of that market was in formal retail. The rest took place in informal markets, neighbourhood stores, and roadside kiosks.
This meant there was enormous room to grow, and ShopRite saw the opportunity to take that spending, wrap it in air-conditioned malls, and turn it into a Western-style retail empire. Its model of big-box shopping centres and wide aisles seemed like the perfect way to capture that space.
Add the fact that South African companies like MTN had already proved that Nigeria could be a goldmine if you had the stomach to navigate its complexities. For ShopRite Holdings, already Africa’s largest retail chain at the time, Nigeria was the ultimate prize, and on paper, the strategy was airtight.
The early years seemed to prove the strategy right. By 2020, the company had 25 stores in 11 cities, anchoring most of Nigeria’s biggest malls.
At one point, it controlled nearly 22% of the country’s formal retail space, according to data from Estate Intel. The chain employed thousands and sourced more than 80% of its products locally.
By every conventional measure, ShopRite’s Nigerian adventure should have been a textbook success. Sales grew, brand recognition soared, and its name became shorthand for modern retail. If you said you were going to ShopRite, everyone knew exactly what that meant. It was the perfect retail experiment in Africa’s largest economy.
But fast-forward to 2025, and the picture looks completely different. Walk into certain ShopRite outlets today, and the signs are worrying.
