There are tons of products you can design with leather materials in Nigeria, as leather is a durable and versatile material suitable for the Nigerian environment.
Therefore, if you’re looking to go into the business of making leather products in Nigeria, you’ll find this article valuable. But before we discuss the top five products you can design with leather materials, let’s look at the nature of the leather business in Nigeria.
Leather Business in Nigeria
As one of the highest producers of leather and leather products in Africa, the Nigerian leather industry is robust and has great growth potential. According to the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) the Nigerian leather industry employs over 750,000 workers, with over 500,000 in the finished leather goods sector. This shows the lack of manpower in the industry, as 500,000 people can’t provide the leather needs of over 200 million people.
It is not surprising that Nigeria imports over $500 million worth of leather products every year, including 80 million pairs of shoes. This shows the obvious need for more local leather product manufacturers in the country. Therefore, if you’re looking to venture into the leather business, you have a hungry market waiting for you. However, you must learn to identify quality leather materials.
How Do You Know Good Leather Material?
There are many ways you can tell if a leather material is quality, but here are the three best:
Texture and Feel
A genuine leather material has a soft, supple, and smooth texture, while a low-quality leather material, on the other hand, has a rigid, rough, or plastic-like texture. You can test the quality of a leather material by pressing it with your fingers. A high-quality leather may have small wrinkles on its surface due to the pressure, but they would disappear within a couple of seconds.
Smell
Another way to know the quality of a good leather is by examining its smell. A high-quality leather material has a distinct, pleasant, and earthy aroma. This is not the same with synthetic leather materials, as they always have a strong chemical or plastic smell.
However, there are some substances that can be applied to synthetic leather to give it that natural, distinct smell of quality leather. But this smell dissipates in a few days, and the chemical, plastic smell surfaces. Therefore, you must be careful when testing leather quality by its smell. To be safe, ensure you combine the three techniques in this article to choose genuine leather for your business.
Flexibility
This is one of the most common ways to check the quality of a leather material. If you’ve been to a Nigerian market to buy a shoe, belt, or any other leather material, chances are you must have seen one of the vendors squeeze the product in the course of convincing you of its quality.
A genuine leather material is flexible and has a certain level of elasticity. It easily returns to its normal position when you bend or squeeze it without showing any cracks or signs of damage.
5 Products You Can Design with Leather Materials in Nigeria
Here are some products you can design with leather materials in Nigeria:
1. Bags
Leather bags make up a good percentage of leather products you can see in the market and everywhere you go. You can design different kinds of bags with leather, such as handbags, tote bags, backpacks, and duffel bags. You can also create different artistic designs on the leather to make them look more attractive to potential customers.
2. Footwear
Leather is a popular material for making shoes in Nigeria, from dress shoes to boots, loafers, and sneakers. If you can design quality, good-looking leather shoes, you will make a ton of money from bankers, teachers, pastors, and other corporate workers who love formal dresses. These kinds of dresses are best worn with formal shoes made with leather, not boots, loafers, or sneakers.
3. Clothing Accessories
You can also design nice clothing accessories, such as belts, wallets, watch straps, etc., with leather materials. Clothing accessories enhance the beauty of people’s outfits; therefore, without them, people feel their dressing isn’t complete.
For instance, a banker or corporate employee would feel incomplete going to work without a belt or watch. And the good thing is, these people are ready to spend a fortune to acquire quality clothing accessories.
4. Furniture
One of the first things you notice when you enter a house is the furniture. People love beautifying their homes with luxurious furniture pieces such as sofas, armchairs, ottomans, and recliners. Leather is the most common material for making them.
By looking at the furniture in a house, you can tell how rich the owner is. Therefore, people are willing to spend a ton of money to buy the most luxurious leather furniture pieces on the market to give their house the best look.
5. Car Seats
The most common material for making the seats of luxury cars like Rolls-Royce, Range Rover, BMW, etc. is leather. Leather does not only make a vehicle look cozy and luxurious; it also provides a maximum level of comfort, even when driving a long distance. One of the major reasons people love leather car seats is because leather, by default, is resistant to liquids and dirt. High-quality leather materials are also resistant to abrasion, making them an ideal seat material for families with children.
Get Quality Leather Materials at Nestken Masters
Making leather products in Nigeria is a good business that guarantees good revenue over time. However, to attract quality, loyal customers, you must ensure your products are made with high-quality leather materials.
While there are many leather vendors in Nigeria, Nestken Masters are recognized dealers with an excellent reputation. Nestken Masters have been selling quality leather, fabrics, upholstery materials, original Korean tarpaulins, etc., since 2010. They’re trusted for their uncompromising stance on quality – a reason the company has grown to have big retail outlets in both Aba and Lagos.
You can visit Nestken Masters in their offices at Aba (No. 4 Boundary Street, off Faulks Rd by Seven Deck, Aba, Abia State) and Lagos (No 2. Ladipo Street, Mushin, Lagos, Lagos State). You’d surely walk away from these offices with top-quality leather materials for your business.