In Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country and its largest economy, adverts of Black Friday sales have also been rampant over the past month. Leading the charge is one of Nigeria’s leading big e-commerce platforms, Konga. Set up in 2012, Konga began its own version of the Black Friday sales a year later. Calling it “Yakata”, a slang in local parlance for a big fall, Konga offers items, ranging from mobile phones to household appliances at a discount.

“Our Yakata is not restrictive as it’s not just on one day but we have our Yakata sales during the Black Friday period,” explains Mayowa Adebayo, Konga’s director of marketing and customer experience. This year, Konga’s Yakata sales lasted a week.

Mobile phones are always the biggest seller online for Konga and Jumia, Nigeria’s two largest e-commerce retailers.

Emmanuel Nwachukwu, head of operations at SLOT, a mobile phone retail chain, says the company’s annual Black Friday sales, now in its second year, is “just a way to increase consumer loyalty and give back  to customers.” Nwachukwu says SLOT will rather “offer customers amazing discounts than spend money on a marketing campaign.”

It may be relatively new, but the Black Friday trend is starting spread in Nigeria. Adebayo says internet searches for Konga’s Yakata sales this year had begun since August. For his part, Nwachukwu says SLOT’s website crashed twice in 24 hours since Black Friday sales began at midnight on Nov. 24. Smaller retail stores are also offering discounts. But despite promising to help buyers save money, some Nigerians remain skeptical of the deals.

While the importation of the Black Friday tradition even though Nigerians do not celebrate Thanksgiving can be seen as blatant copying, businesses offer globalization as an explanation.

“Nigerians are early adopters and we set trends too,” Adebayo tells Quartz. “Anything that is internationally relevant, Nigerians also want in,” she says. Nwachukwu agrees: “The world has become a global village, it will be impossible to say there won’t be a mix of culture and ways of doing things.”

Adebayo says Konga’s Yakata is inspired solely by the idea of a period of massive discounts and not a turkey-eating tradition. ”For us, it’s just about the concept of Black Friday when prices crash and people come online to buy things. That’s our version of it, it has nothing to do with Thanksgiving,” Adebayo tells Quartz. “If it can happen in America, why can’t it happen here?”

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