A Trip to NEXT: Market Friday Edition!

I am so thrilled to be here as this is my first post in this community. I have always looked forward to posting in this community but I just kept postponing my participation. However, I am here now and without further ado, let’s dive right in.

So my friend @samostically and I took a trip to a big supermarket called NEXT Supermarket located in a community in the South of my city. It was a fun ride as we sang at the top of our voices to our music playlist, and we eventually got there. We were given tags at the entrance gate with no parking or entry fee as found in a lot of supermarkets. This supermarket is the biggest in town. Plus it has a super large parking lot that can comfortably take about a 500-car capacity per time. It is owned by a popular businessman from the Eastern part of my country. Both the outside and inside of the supermarket are very organized, neat, and easy to navigate as there are signs everywhere.

There is also a big food court detached from the supermarket building but inside the compound where all types of dishes are sold. We didn’t really explore it that day as we were there for the main supermarket. Their food is normally affordable and is priced as low as $1 to $10 depending on what you want to eat. Without wasting time, we parked and dashed into the main supermarket building for shopping.

As you get to the entrance, you are required to wear your nose mask, sanitize, and your temperature gets checked before entry. The first thing you notice is a mini-booth with coffee products known as Chivas with a fancy royal-looking chair beside it for their customers.


Another really cute spot is the Heineken booth with a little sit-down area for their customers to enjoy the Heineken Experience.

Still, as you get in, another spot is the place where real plants are sampled for sale with a machine watering them. To my right was a stand displaying arts and cultural works from diverse cultures in Nigeria, produced by an artist whose autograph is somewhere on them.


The next thing is the labels for each aisle. I counted about 70 aisles with labels of diverse genres of products you can think of from personal care to generators.

Cross section	Cross section
Cross section	Cross section

As you take a walk further right, you would notice an area with clothes, shoes, bags, pieces of jewelry, makeup, etc.

Jewelry Section	Clothes Section
Shoes Section	Shoes Section

Cultural Caps	Cultural Walking Sticks

The first aisle we explored was the personal care aisle as I wanted to restock my toiletries which range as low as $2 and as high as $50 per item in this section. The next aisle we visited was for books as I was looking for a particular book, “The Art of War by Sun Tzu”.

Next, we moved over to the kitchenware aisle as a fancy stand caught my attention from afar.

Then we moved to the fresh food aisle where there is a butchery, seafood, ready meals, processed meats, frozen fish, chicken options. At this point, we were window shopping in these areas.


We went further to the drink section and grabbed a cold drink and took a brief glance at the fruit section to the right of the drinks.



Just beside the non-alcoholic drink section is the alcoholic drink section. We took a walk through the section and sighted the pet care section just opposite it.




We proceeded to the next stop which included household fittings. We saw a really beautiful collection of lights. In this moment my thoughts drifted and I wondered what it would be like to go shopping with @mipiano 😊.

Just right across from us were this whole section of really beautiful table and chair sets for sale. On the wall are some really profound artworks on display for sale as well. Just beside it was a section for games and sports equipment.




Then we went over to the flower section. We could not help taking pictures as they were so beautiful and colourful.




The final section we visited was for electronics such as audio, TV & Video, Hi-Tech, etc.



There were a lot more aisles and sections but we were working with time and could only explore so much of the Supermarket as it would require several hours to carefully explore it. We spent a little over 3hours there.

Then we proceeded to make payments and I also noticed a spot behind the payment point for shisha products and just beside the exit point was a nice-looking pharmacy.


The items I purchased were mostly provisions like cereal, milk, snacks, etc, and toiletries which came to a total of $18 (NGN10,090). In my opinion, the supermarket has a really competitive price, if not one of the best prices. It was a really exciting and insightful day as the other times I visited, I barely explored aisles and sections that I had nothing to purchase from.