🌍 Nigeria greenlights new fashion industry board + ChatGPT learns to shop

Hi Operator,

New contract + ongoing projects + SAFW = ending my 12-week-straight publishing streak, but we go again, with a shift to Monday morning publishing for now. As markets (try to) settle, news headline focus has shifted to activity that isn’t about the T-word:

Nigeria’s government may finally be taking the fashion industry’s economic potential seriously after stamping approval on the creation of a new dedicated private-public partner board. Its work will reportedly be funded by import levies on fabrics (your regular reminder that dutch wax prints aren’t actually African), but there’s no mention of what happens to activities that money used to fund.

Elsewhere, ChatGPT creators Open AI want to fold all the steps between search and purchase into a single prompt for fashion shoppers, with the launch of new features to bring the online shopping experience into a chatbot interface. Think e-commerce search bar that can see images (not just read product names), combined with every possible filter — price, colour, available size, shipping options — in a single prompt.

The applications for this could light a new fire under traditional search engines — where the shoppers go, the ad money and optimisation spend goes. What SEO and SERP ad spend would look like in a chat-first shopping world… No idea. Do you pay Open AI for first consideration in responses to prompts that match your product? Will be keeping tabs on this; let me know your thoughts if you try it out.

With thanks,
Modupe Oloruntoba

Across Africa

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Elsewhere

That’s all for today — thoughts?

With thanks,
Modupe