Selling in a chat works. The customer asks, you answer, they pay, you deliver. It is personal, it is fast, and it is how an enormous share of Nigerian commerce actually happens.
The problem is not the selling. It is everything underneath it.
The three things chat selling quietly costs you
You cannot answer "what do I have left?" Stock lives in your head, or in a notebook that is one shop-trip out of date. You find out the last medium sold when a customer has already paid for it.
You cannot tell a good week from a bad one. Money arrived in your bank account. Some of it was profit, some was a refund you sent back, some was your cousin repaying you. Nothing separates them.
You answer the same four questions forever. How much, what sizes, do you deliver to Ikeja, how long does it take. Every day, to every new person.
What to change, and what to leave alone
Leave the conversation alone. It is the part that works.
Change what happens at the moment someone says they want it.
Send a link, not an account number
Instead of typing an account number and waiting for a screenshot, send a payment link for that item. The customer pays by card, transfer or USSD. Three things then happen without you doing them: an order is created, your stock count goes down by one, and the payment is tied to that specific order.
That last one is the whole point. At the end of the month you can say what you sold, not just what arrived in your account.
Answer the four questions once
Put sizes, prices, delivery areas and timeframes on the product page and the store, then send the link. You are not writing them out again — and the customer reads the answer at 11pm without waiting for you.
Let the store handle the browsing
Your catalogue link goes in your bio and your status. People who want to look, look. The ones who message you are further along, and there are fewer of them asking basic questions.
What this does not fix
It will not make people stop sending voice notes. It will not make customers read the delivery information before asking about delivery. Chat selling is still chat selling.
What changes is that the business underneath the chat becomes visible — and a business you can see is one you can actually grow.
Create a free store and put your first five products up. It takes an afternoon.