- You can’t find the product brand online.
Most times vendors are not manufacturers of what they sell, they mostly resell (wholesale or retail, or both) because the business of producing electrical accessories is a very expensive one. So it is easy to ask the vendor the name of the brand of product they are reselling. When they tell you the name of the brand, please go online and search for the brand. Find out what country they are, and keep in mind that the electrical standards of that country is what they would uphold. If however you cannot find the brand of the product online, then the chances are, they are not a quality brand and their products might be substandard.
Yes, some good brands might not be online, but most serious brands in the 21st century world have websites and are online, so why borther about the few unserious brands?
So please, as an extra measure, search on Google at least.
- The product brand name is misspelt.
In the bid to hide and diaguise themselves under quality and well known brands electrical accessories brands, what fake brands do is use the same name, but misspell them. For example, there’s a knockoff brand of Volex (original brand) that calls themselves Vollex. Now to the unsuspecting person, you would buy fake cheap sockets and switches called Vollex at the price of the premium Volex brand, and the salesmen at Alaba or vendors online will do everything to convince you that it is the original and give you a run down of how great the manufacturing company is in terms of quality and brand.
If you do not do your own research by checking them up online, you might never know you are buying fake electrical accessories at a premium price.
- You can’t find the vendor on Google My Business.
There are a lot of scam vendors, especially on Instagram and Facebook. Anybody can create a new account, grow it for a few months, and cash out big by scamming people for a few months and shutting the page down as soon as the call outs become too much.
When you find a vendor on social media, double check them on Google to verify their authenticity. This is just a precautionary measure. Check to see if they have reviews and check what people are saying about them. Check their social page too to find reviews and see if they hide the people who gave the reviews by covering their handles.
Vendors who are serious wouldn’t mind showing you their previous customers so you can go ask for yourself if they are real.
So please check them out on Google. Only serious vendors go through the stress of setting up Google My Business.
- The vendor doesn’t offer any assurances on their products
If a vendor cannot give you an assurance on the electrical accessories they sell, then you probably shouldn’t buy from them, unless you are really willing to buy fake or less than standard electrical accessories for reasons best known to you.
A vendor should be willing to put their neck on the line in ways of offering warranties, or insurance on the products you buy from them. At Southbridge sockets for instance, we offer a one year warranty on our tier 1 electrical accessories, meaning that if you buy from that product range, and the electrical accessories stop working within the first year of using them, we come back and replace them for you completely free of charge.
We also offer a guarantee of at least 20 years. Guarantees are weak, but we also know that if the products do not last as long as we say, then we make ourselves liars, and we don’t want our brand to be known for such.
- Too many designed images and few or no raw pictures/videos of products
There are usually cases of what you ordered versus what you get when you order for things in Nigeria. This is where after purchasing a product, it doesn’t look or perform as was shown online.
To avoid this, ensure that you demand for unfiltered videos or pictures of the electrical accessories before you buy. That is if it is not already available on their social media pages.
People who peddle fake products or want to swindle you, would usually not have real images or videos, rather they design something beautiful to make posts with, or pick studio grade pictures off the internet.
- No refunds policies by vendor.
Vendors that clearly state that you get no refunds or have any room for negotiations after a purchase should be avoided at all costs. If a vendor sells top quality electrical accessories, they will offer you a refund policy because they know that you won’t come for a refund because they sell quality electrical accessories in the first place and so there really would be no need to ask for a refund.
Run away from vendors who have a no refund or no exchange policy.
- Uncourteous responses from vendor.
Vendors who are rude or have no good customer service tradition are trouble waiting to happen. A vendor should be welcoming and willing to show you or tell you all you need to know. If they are nor doing that, then there just might be something to hide, and it would be in your best interest to avoid such vendors because if anything goes wrong after your transaction with them, they will definitely not try to help you resolve it.
PS: Something worthy of note though, we are Southbridge sockets and switches. The one brand in the electrical accessories industry in Nigeria that operates on very transparent business processes. We tell you exactly what you get when you shop with us, and we also put our name, our neck and brand on the line in order to give you a full assurance on what you are buying from us.
We do not sell everything. We have added more and more products to our catalog over the years, slowly and steadily. This is to ensure that we know exactly what we are selling, so we can effectively communicate to our customers all that is involved in what they’re buying from us.
Do not hesitate to give us a call on 0706 328 0459 to place an order or make enquiries on any of our products.
