Proving you are a real seller

"Are you legit? I've been scammed before." It arrives right after you send your account details, on a ₦12,500 order, from someone who has been chatting happily for ten minutes.

You cannot argue anyone out of that. What works is showing three things, in this order: that you're a specific person who can be found, that other people have received what they paid for, and that you're willing to carry some of the risk yourself instead of putting all of it on the buyer. Everything else, the logo, the "trusted vendor" line in your bio, the follower count, does nothing.

And before anything else: the buyer asking is not being rude. They're doing the sensible thing, and a lot of them have paid ₦20,000 to a nice-looking page that stopped replying. That's the market you're selling into. Arguing with it costs you the sale.

What they're actually asking

They're not asking whether you're a good person. They're asking a much narrower question, and if you answer the wrong one you'll sound defensive.

The real question is: if I send this money and you go quiet, what can I do?

That's it. Every trust signal that works is really an answer to that question. A face and a name means there's someone to find. A shop address means there's somewhere to go. Other buyers means there's a group of people who'd hear about it. Part payment means the amount at risk is smaller. A refund policy means there's a route that isn't a fight.

Signals that don't answer that question do nothing at all, no matter how professional they look.

What doesn't work, and why it's worth knowing

Sellers spend money and effort on all of these:

• "100% legit, trusted vendor, no scam" in the bio. Every scam page has this. It's the one thing they all have.
• A polished logo and matching highlight covers. Costs ₦5,000 on Fiverr and takes a scammer forty minutes.
• Follower count. Buyable, and everyone knows it.
• Stock photos of the product. The buyer has seen the same photo on four other pages, because everyone pulled it from the same supplier catalogue. This actively hurts you.
• "NO REFUND NO RETURN" in capitals. Reads as a warning about you, not a policy.
• Testimonials typed into a graphic. Anyone can type words into a template.

None of that is useless because it's dishonest. It's useless because a scammer can produce it in an afternoon, which means it carries no information. The test for any trust signal is simple: could someone running a fake page do this just as easily? If yes, it isn't evidence.

The evidence that works, roughly in order of power

1. Your face and your name. Not a logo. A person, in a video, saying the thing. A thirty-second clip of you packing an order, talking, in your own voice, in your own room, is worth more than every graphic you've ever made. Scammers can steal photos. Very few of them will put their own face on camera for a ₦12,500 order.

2. The account name the buyer sees before they confirm. In Nigeria the buyer sees the account name on their screen before they press send. If your page says "Amaka Scents" and the name that comes up is a completely unrelated third party, you've just triggered every alarm they have, and fairly. Get your account name as close to your business name as you can, and then, crucially, tell them in advance what it will say:

When you put in the number you'll see AMAKA CHUKWU on the screen. That's me, the account is in my personal name. If you see any other name at all, stop and send me a screenshot.

That single line does two jobs. It removes the surprise, and it quietly protects them from the copycat page, which we'll get to.

3. Other people receiving things, not other people praising you. A screenshot of someone saying "thank you so much dear, God bless" proves nothing. A photo of a stack of parcels with waybills on them, a short video of you handing a bag to a named dispatch rider, a customer's own video of unwrapping a bottle in their own kitchen: those are hard to fake at volume and they show the part the buyer is worried about, which is delivery, not politeness.

4. Somewhere you can be found. A shop, a market stall, a street name, an office you share, a landmark. "I'm at [address], come and buy in person if you're nearby" is enormously reassuring even to someone who lives 600km away, because it means you exist somewhere.

5. Time. A page with two years of posts, including the boring ones, is nearly impossible to fake. This is why deleting old posts to make your grid look tidy is a mistake. Your archive is your credential.

6. A phone number that gets answered. Post it. Answer it. A voice ends more doubt in fifteen seconds than a week of messages.

The move that actually closes it: split the risk

Everything above is evidence. This is different, and it's the strongest thing available to you, because it changes the buyer's exposure instead of trying to change their mind.

Offer to carry some of the risk:

Totally fair, you don't know me. Two options. If you're in Enugu, pay the rider when it reaches you, nothing upfront. If you're outside, send ₦5,000 now and the balance of ₦7,500 when it lands and you've opened it. If it doesn't arrive, I refund the ₦5,000, and I'll put that in writing right now.

Read what that costs you. If they never pay the balance, you're out the goods, which for a ₦12,500 bottle of oil is maybe ₦4,000 of stock. Against that, you've converted a buyer who was about to leave, and you've done it without a single sentence of persuasion.

The specifics of running part payments without losing track of them are in splitting payment across two methods, and it's worth reading before you offer this at scale, because the admin is the part that bites.

Cash on delivery does the same thing more completely, which is why it dominates in Nigeria and isn't going anywhere. It moves the whole risk onto you. That's expensive, and refusals are real, but "I take pay-on-delivery within Lagos" answers the trust question so completely that no other sentence competes with it.

The reply to "are you legit"

Here's the whole message. It's long for a DM, deliberately.

Fair question, and you're right to ask, plenty of people have been burned. Here's everything I can give you:

My name is Amaka Chukwu, I make and bottle these myself in Enugu, at [street], you're welcome to come and buy in person. My number is [number], call me now if you like.

That's my page since 2024, you can scroll back and see the same customers coming back.

The account is in my name, AMAKA CHUKWU. You'll see that on the screen before you confirm. If any other name comes up, don't send it, message me.

And if you'd rather not send anything upfront, that's fine. Pay ₦5,000 now and the rest when it arrives and you've opened it, or if you're in Enugu just pay the rider.

I'll send you the dispatch video with your waybill number as soon as it goes out today.

Nothing in there is a claim about your character. It's a list of things that can be checked, plus an offer that reduces what they stand to lose. That's the whole formula, and you can rewrite it for whatever you sell in about ten minutes.

Send it once. Don't follow it with three more messages. A seller who over-explains starts to sound like they're selling something other than perfume.

The copycat page, which is your problem too

Someone copies your photos, your bio and your prices, makes a handle with an extra underscore, watches the comments under your posts and DMs everyone who asks "price?" with your product names and their own account number. The buyer pays in good faith. They just don't pay you.

This is common enough in Nigerian Instagram and WhatsApp selling that you should treat it as routine maintenance rather than a crisis. Three things to do:

Pin a post saying which handle is yours and which account name will appear, and that you will never send different account details from a different account.

Say the account name out loud in the sales thread, every time, as above. The buyer who is told in advance what name to expect will not pay a stranger.

When it happens anyway, be fast and be kind. The buyer has lost money and feels stupid. Tell them to call their bank today, because same-day is the only window where a recall has any realistic chance, and give them your real details again. The full script for that moment is in what to say when a buyer says they paid.

Some sellers ship the order anyway when a buyer gets caught by a page impersonating them. That's generous, defensible, and should be a decision rather than a reflex. Don't do it on a ₦180,000 item.

Screenshots and social proof, honestly

Reposting customer messages works, if you do it in a way a scammer can't copy.

• Show the delivery, not the compliment. The customer's own photo of the bottle on their table beats "thank you ma" every time.
• Leave the timestamps in. A screenshot with the date visible is worth several without.
• Use video where you can. A four-second clip of a customer opening a parcel is the highest-trust content that exists in this market and it costs you nothing but asking.
• Ask properly, once, at the right moment: "If you like it, would you mind sending me a quick video when you open it? I'll post it and I'll knock ₦500 off your next order." About one in five will.
• Never invent one. One fabricated screenshot, spotted once, ends you.

Worked example: Amaka, perfume oils, Enugu

Amaka blends and bottles perfume oils in Enugu. A 30ml bottle is ₦12,500, a gift set of three is ₦33,000, and she does somewhere between 40 and 60 orders a month, almost all through Instagram DMs, almost all paid by bank transfer, with dispatch through a named logistics company.

For her first six months about one in three conversations died at the moment she sent her account number. She'd answer "I'm legit trust me" and watch the person go quiet.

What she changed, in the order she changed it:

She started sending an eight-second video with every single order: her hand, the bottle going into the bag, the waybill with the number visible, and the dispatch rider taking it. Same shot every time, no editing. She sends it in the same thread, unprompted, on the day it goes out.

She added the account name line before sending details, not after.

She offered ₦5,000-now, balance-on-arrival to anyone outside Enugu who hesitated, without waiting for them to ask.

The drop-off at the account-details moment went from roughly a third to something she describes as "a few a month". In eleven months, four people never paid the balance. That's about ₦16,000 of stock, against dozens of orders that would simply not have happened.

The detail she says nobody tells you: the video does more work in the group chat than in the DM. Her buyers forward it to friends who are considering ordering, and it travels in a way that a post never does, because a forwarded video of a specific parcel with a specific waybill reads as evidence, while a post reads as advertising.

She also stopped apologising for asking for payment first. Her line now is one sentence, said once, without hedging: "I need payment before dispatch because I've been burned too. Here's how we can split it if you'd rather."

What a shop link proves, and what it doesn't

Be clear-eyed about this, because it's where sellers overestimate their tools. A Sailo shop at sailo.store/yourname goes live the moment you sign up. That means anyone can have one in five minutes, including the person copying your page. It is not verification, there's no badge that means "this seller has been checked", and nobody at Sailo has confirmed you exist. On the free plan there's actually a Sailo badge on your shop, which the Pro plan at $19 a month removes, and neither state tells a buyer a single thing about whether you'll ship.

What a shop page genuinely does is narrower and still useful: it puts your prices, your delivery terms and your policies in one place that doesn't change between conversations, and inconsistency is one of the loudest scam signals there is. A seller whose price is ₦12,500 in the DM, ₦11,000 in the comments and ₦14,000 on the page looks like someone making it up, whether or not they are.

There's also no escrow here, and no mobile money rail. If you and your buyer want a third party holding the money until delivery, that's an arrangement the two of you make elsewhere. Sailo never touches money on bank transfer or cash on delivery, takes nothing from it, and cannot vouch for either side. The trust is entirely yours to build.

Do this today

Record the eight-second dispatch video on your very next order and send it unprompted. Then write two lines and save them where you can paste from: the account-name warning, and the split-payment offer with your own numbers in it.

That's most of the work. The rest is time, and time only counts if you're consistent, which is really what building trust before money moves is about. If you want the local specifics of running this properly, selling online in Nigeria covers the ground around it, and the message you send the moment an order lands, which is the first thing a nervous buyer reads, is in how to write an order confirmation.