The buyer is almost never the brand
Ask a first-time importer in Lagos who they will sell to, and the answer is usually 'retailers'. Ask again after the first container lands, and the answer changes to 'the people who bought the first container'. That gap is the most useful thing to understand before you start comparing quotations.
A sanitary pads supplier in Nigeria is not selling into a shelf-ready retail market. Goods move through a distributor or an open-market wholesaler, and that intermediary decides how the product is packed, priced and often how it is named. Until that layer is identified, every comparison is being made against the wrong reference point.
What the Lagos channel actually looks like
Three layers, and they buy differently.
The importer holds the registration and the capital. They carry the risk of the shipment, and they usually want one specification broad enough to serve the whole market rather than a narrow SKU range. A single absorbency grade, two lengths, one pack count is a common brief.
The open-market wholesaler buys in cartons, breaks them into smaller units and sells on margin per carton. Pack size matters here in a way it does not in a supermarket plan, because a large pack ties up more working capital per sale. A pack that reads as good value in one channel reads as expensive stock in another.
The distributor serves named retail accounts. This is the only layer that asks about shelf presence, and usually the last to commit to a volume figure.
Three things that change when the buyer is a wholesaler
Pack count. A wholesaler breaking cartons wants a pack size that divides cleanly into the carton and still leaves a sensible unit price. A ten-pack and a twenty-pack carton are not interchangeable once the carton is opened, because the sub-unit is what gets resold.
Documentation. The importer needs the technical file in a form they can hand to the regulator. That means the specification sheet, the material list and the test reports have to agree with each other. When they do not, the file comes back with questions, and the questions arrive after production rather than before it.
Terms. A wholesaler working on thin margins is cash-constrained, not credit-worthy by assumption. The first order often settles as deposit against production with the balance against documents. That structure is decided by the buyer's cash cycle, so it is worth asking about early rather than treating as a fixed rule.
Where the first order usually stalls
Not at price. It stalls at the point where the buyer has to commit to a specification they cannot yet visualise. A seller who sends a catalogue and waits is asking the buyer to do the translating work. The sellers who move faster send a specific proposal: this length, this absorbency grade, this pack count, this carton configuration, and the documents attached.
The second stall is the registration timeline. It runs on its own clock, so the production plan has to be built around it rather than in parallel with it, otherwise finished stock sits waiting for a number.
Why two quotations rarely compare
Put three quotes side by side and the cheapest is usually the one with the least inside it. The differences hide in four places: whether the price includes the polybag or the printed film, whether the carton is a standard export carton or a lighter one, whether freight is quoted to port or to door, and whether the specification is the one you asked for or the nearest one the factory already runs.
None of those are dishonest. They are simply unstated, and an unstated item is where a landed cost quietly changes. The fix is mechanical: ask each supplier to quote the same four lines, and to state what is excluded.
What to send instead of an enquiry
A short brief beats a long enquiry. Pack count, target landed cost per carton, the channel you are actually selling into, and the registration route you intend to use. Those four lines let a factory quote a real option instead of a range.
If you are weighing suppliers for a first Nigerian order, send those four lines. We will answer against them, in writing, with the specification attached.
