The Nigeria government has released the framework for the implementation of the N75 billion Youth Investment Fund. This was disclosed in a publication titled “Framework for the Operation of the NIRSAL Microfinance Bank Window of the Nigeria Youth Investment Fund” from the Central Bank of Nigeria. NIRSAL, a risk agency within CBN, will do the implementation.
Shopify Partners TikTok As It Looks for Demand
Shopify, a Canadian e-commerce platform for online stores and retail point-of-sale systems, wants to grow faster. It has already partnered with Facebook to launch a Facebook shopping feature even as Facebook continues to expand its tentacle. This partnership will give Shopify demand which it does not have at scale.
It is what it is: if you have demand, you can venture into anything online. The latest news is that Facebook has gone into gaming. Why not? When you have demand, everything else becomes marginal. Yes, once the foundational fixed cost has been taken care off, building new application layers becomes easy. That is why we have Facebook Shopping, Facebook Local, Facebook Neighborhood….and now Facebook Games. It is building leverageable assets in technology.
Shopify needs demand, and would be further partnering with TikTok since growing demand does not happen overnight. With this partnership, the ecommerce platform can grow faster: “The partnership will enable Shopify to reach a wider audience of younger people as it pushes for more sales”. Call this infusion: the one million Shopify members will have access to hundreds of millions of TikTok users.
“Today, we’re announcing a first-of-its-kind commerce partnership with TikTok that brings the world’s leading destination for short form video to Shopify’s more than one million merchants. With the TikTok channel for Shopify, merchants can take advantage of TikTok’s global scale to reach new and engaged audiences,” Shopify said in a statement announcing the partnership.
The partnership will enable Shopify to reach a wider audience of younger people as it pushes for more sales. The e-commerce company has over 1 million merchants looking for customers and TikTok has the audience that fits in. The companies said the partnership will eventually expand to include other in-app shopping features.
Under the deal, Shopify merchants are allowed to create, run and optimize their TikTok marketing campaigns directly from the Shopify dashboard by installing the new TikTok channel app from the Shopify App Store. Once installed, merchants will have access to the key functions from TikTok For Business Ads Manager at their disposal.
What is happening here is fundamental: modern digital empires control demand, not necessarily supply. Shopify needs access to demand to thrive. TikTok has demand, and that is why this partnership looks great. I expect Shopify to pay TikTok for this just as Google pays Apple to have its search as default on the Safari browser.
Shopify Partners with TikTok to Entice Younger Generation Merchants
TikTok announced Tuesday it is investing in social commerce through a partnership with Canadian e-commerce platform, Shopify.
“Today, we’re announcing a first-of-its-kind commerce partnership with TikTok that brings the world’s leading destination for short form video to Shopify’s more than one million merchants. With the TikTok channel for Shopify, merchants can take advantage of TikTok’s global scale to reach new and engaged audiences,” Shopify said in a statement announcing the partnership.
The partnership will enable Shopify to reach a wider audience of younger people as it pushes for more sales. The e-commerce company has over 1 million merchants looking for customers and TikTok has the audience that fits in. The companies said the partnership will eventually expand to include other in-app shopping features.
Under the deal, Shopify merchants are allowed to create, run and optimize their TikTok marketing campaigns directly from the Shopify dashboard by installing the new TikTok channel app from the Shopify App Store. Once installed, merchants will have access to the key functions from TikTok For Business Ads Manager at their disposal.
These ad tools allow merchants to create native, shareable content that turns their products into In-Feed video ads that will resonate with the TikTok community.
Merchants will be able to target their audiences across gender, age, user behavior, and video category, and then track the campaign’s performance over time. They select which product they would like to feature, and video ads are automatically generated that drive to their Shopify stores for checkout.
The campaigns’ costs will vary, based on the merchants own business objectives and how much they want to spend.
Shopify merchants are enabled to install or connect their TikTok pixel – a tool that helps them to easily track conversions driven by their TikTok ad campaigns.
Shopify’s Vice President of product, Satish Kanwar said that the new feature was previously made available to a select number of merchants as part of beta test. But as of Tuesday, Oct. 27, the product is being made available to all merchants across the U.S., and will be made available in other select markets throughout North America, Europe and Southeast Asia in early 2021.
Shopify and TikTok will also collaborate to test new commerce features over the coming months that will further empower merchants to expand their paid and organic reach in video and on profiles, according to the partnership statement.
“TikTok is one of the world’s fastest growing entertainment platforms with over 100 million highly engaged users in the U.S. alone. TikTok channel means Shopify merchants- even those without a strong TikTok following of their own yet – can connect with these new audiences using content that feels authentic and genuine to the TikTok experience,” Kanwar said in a statement about the new partnership.
In addition to launching the new TikTok channel, Shopify and TikTok have also partnered to showcase Black-owned businesses with the launch of TikTok’s first co-branded Hashtag Challenge plus – #ShopBlack.
The two partners did not provide the financial details of the deal.
The partnership came while Walmart is contemplating a move to TikTok’s platform to boost its advertising strategy. The retailer was looking at a deal that will draw it close to the short-video app’s young audience, but the political tension between China and the U.S. that TikTok got caught in, restrained Walmart.
Other potential partners are waiting on the outcome of the U.S. appeals court hearing billed for November 4. The hearing is to determine whether the U.S. government has the right to ban TikTok, a development TikTok said it would cripple its use in the United States.
Affectionate, Smart, Eloquent Retail Sales Associate Can Boost Customer Experiences in Retail Stores
Providing great customer experience is a key operational goal for retail chain outfits. Indeed, among many other factors, whether or not shoppers will enjoy visiting a store depends largely on the quality of ‘customer experience’ they get.
Also known as CX, customer experience is the sum-total of interactions that customers have with a business and their perception (positive or negative) about those interactions. In a typical retail store, asides the general store design, the ambience, ease of navigation in the store and the checkout process, at the centre of customer experience creation are the retail sales associates who interface or interact with shoppers right from their moment of entry into the store through shopping and then to eventual checkout from the store. Hence, the ‘quality’ of retail sales associates can have a significant impact on the level of customer experience that shoppers have when they visit a store.
Indeed, retail sales associates are the face of the store: they act as the store’s brand representatives. Shoppers spend more time with them than they do other staff in the store. Shoppers rely on them to navigate the store and to help them make informed product choices. Therefore, it will be a big turn off if such associates cannot warm themselves into the shoppers’ heart: which is by understanding their needs, giving them insights about products and recommending products that suitably fit their intended purpose or solve their existing challenges. In essence, the sales associates operate at the front-end of the retail store’s operation and how they deliver strongly affects the quality of the ‘customer experience’ that the store provides.
Surprisingly, however, as glaringly vital as the retail sales role is in the delivery of quality customer experience, it is what retail managers pay attention to the least in terms of the quality of whom should be appointed to handle it. Many retail/store/mall managers do not even know that sales associates are key to the creation of quality customer experience in the first place! Unlike other units of the store operation (i.e. warehouse, inventory, finance, IT, etc.,) where education, skills and competence are considered to appoint talents to fill, in-store sales positions are often filled with the least of the store’s talent. Yet, this is a unit that can significantly increase the store’s customer experience if the right people with the right qualities are engaged.
Having affectionate, smart, eloquent sales associates at the storefront is particularly important if the store operates in an environment filled with people of high socioeconomic and educational status.
Moving forward, let’s x-ray the effects of these three qualities and how they affect the ability of retail sales associates to deliver excellent customer experience at the storefront.
Retail Sales Associates’ Affection
As a business to consumers (B2C) industry tending to customers in their hundreds, thousands and millions on a daily basis, affectionate sales associates can make a big difference on the quality of experience that shoppers have in the store. An affectionate sales associate has the ability to warmly receive, tend to and care for shoppers, thereby building attraction and evoking shoppers’ interest in the ongoing shopping. The affectionate, warm sales associate is upbeat, spirited and receptive, so this helps him/her to create an atmosphere of friendship and cordiality on the shop-floor.
Affectionate associates are naturally ready and willing to listen to customers’ needs and help in whatever required way. The atmosphere so created by the associates’ warmness and affections helps shoppers feel relaxed and motivated to explore the store the more, knowing full well that care and assistance are just a call away!
Naturally, everyone (yes, all of us) gravitates towards what and who cares for them. The same is true in retail! If the sales associates show genuine attention and care, shoppers will always gravitate towards them and the store.
Retail Sales Associates’ Smartness
This is the ability of the retail sales associate to, on one hand, thoroughly understand all his/her merchandise: their features, functions, application, limitations, assemblage, and installation as the case may be. On the other hand, it is the ability to study and perfectly understand shoppers needs, challenges, including their taste, class and preferences and then offering or recommending suitably-fit products.
A smart retail sales associate will not leave shoppers to wander in the store without solutions to the challenges that brought them. He/she has the ability to understand the needs of shoppers and help in every step. Smart sales associates demonstrate sound product knowledge and provide adequate products information to shoppers. This consequently boosts the assurance of shoppers and makes them trust whatever judgements or recommendations the associate makes.
Consequently, when next shoppers have needs to fill or challenges to solve, the store will be their first port of call because they know there are smart, capable sales associates to help them make better and informed decisions on how to fill the needs.
Retail Sales Associates’ Eloquence
Retail sales associates operate at the front-end of the store operation and communication constitutes the majority of their daily activities. They primarily have to engage customers: seeking to know their challenges, needs, and pitching the right products to them. Indeed, retail sales associates’ ‘affections’ and ‘smartness’ remain obscured until they can be exhibited through clear and effective communication.
Eloquence is the ability of the retail sales associate to engage the shoppers and smoothly communicate with them in the language or manner that they understand and enjoy. In other words, it is the ability to lace soft skills and mental competence in a clear language and tone that customers comprehend and appreciate. Literally, shoppers are desirous of associates whom they don’t have to struggle to make themselves clear to. Having eloquent sales associates at the storefront, therefore, helps to increase the status of the store and also the level of respect and reverence that shoppers accord its brand.
Conclusion
In conclusion, making effort to fix affectionate, smart, eloquent talents at the storefront can go a long way in increasing the quality of experience that a retail store offers its customers and, in turn, high purchase and return patronage from shoppers. It will also increase the store’s goodwill and the reverence it gets from shoppers.
Did The “Older Generation” Fail Nigeria?
Did we, the “older generation”, fail the youths?
If you are above the age of 25, this question also applies to you. I know that in Nigeria, especially in our villages, people are regarded as “youths” until they are about the age of 40 or even 45. But right now, Nigerian “youths”, whom we would have ordinarily referred to as “young people” have made it known that once you leave secondary school and shortly after you graduate from higher institution, you are a “youth”. Any other person above that age bracket belongs to the “older generation”. So when you want to say, “The older generation has failed us”, remember you are one of us.
Back to the focal question, do you think we have failed the “youths”?
If you have noticed, since the #ENDSARS protest began, youths have been accusing us of failing them. They said Nigeria is as bad as it is because of us. They said we are too weak to speak for them. They said that there is no development in the country because we are too comfortable with mediocrity. They said we don’t know what we wanted or that we are too afraid of speaking up. They said we prefer staying in the dark instead of the light. They said that while the world is moving digital, we remained in analogue. They accused us of not being computer literate. Should I continue?
Well, the question has not been answered. But let’s look at a short encounter I had with one of my contacts.
Some days ago, one young man in his early twenties sent up his “the older generation has failed us” post on his WhatsApp status. I would have ignored it but he added another angle to it that made me decide to point him straight. He wrote that the “older generation” is a failure and that when they, “the youth” and the “working generation” decided to liberate the country, we, “the older generation” sabotaged their efforts. He further wrote that since the “older generation” knew they were too weak to make positive changes, and were too afraid to come out and join the protest, they should have steered clear so that they, “the chosen ones” would make Nigeria “work again”. What effrontery, you would say.
Well, I crawled into his DM, like they say, and asked him, “My dear, how many protests did you join during the military regime? How many bullets did you receive for your country to send out dictatorship? How many ‘online protests’ did you perform in those days that people ‘disappeared’ for challenging government’s policy? What can you say about the transition of Nigeria from military regime to democracy? Did you join the 2012 protest on fuel subsidy removal that shut down Nigeria for almost two weeks? Have you even heard of the Aba Women’s Riot that happened as far back as 1929?”
Well, let’s just say he replied with “my dad told me” and “my mom said” stories. But then, he never had the guts to post nonsense again.
You see, I don’t really blame the “youths” for saying what they do because the “older generation” brought the internet into the country and won freedom of speech for them. I don’t really blame them because the “older generation” believe in “children” being free to express themselves and hence trained these young ones to be expressive (they wouldn’t have talked nonsense against an elder if it was during our time). I don’t really blame them because History was removed from school and most of our historical pasts were either collecting dusts in old newspaper pages or they have been lost forever. I actually don’t blame them because no one taught them the truth.
I don’t need to go into the roles the “older generation” played in the #ENDSARS protest because that will be a whole story on its own. But I wish the “youths” will be honest enough to say that the “older generation” told them to cash in their chips when it was obvious that things were turning ugly but they ignored the advice and claimed that we are “weak”. What they didn’t know is that what an old man sits under a shade to see, a young man will climb a tree and still not see it.
Now to answer the focal question of this essay, nobody failed anybody. Nigeria might not be moving at the pace we all wanted but it is moving. The youths are too young to observe the changes taking place but they are enjoying it. People fought to bring the country to where it is. Lives were sacrificed for that. Properties were lost for that. Some lost their identities because of it. But then, we, the “older generation” have seen the best way to move the country forward and have been working towards that. It might seem subtle, but it is powerful.
So, next time a “youth” says that we have failed them, please, advise him to look for a History book and shut up.