Lagos fills up in December, and the businesses that do well out of it are the ones that were already on a visitor's list before her plane landed. The Detty December Fest runs from 18 to 30 December this year, but the social media management work that decides your season is happening now, in the first two weeks of November.
That is the part the festive guides skip. They tell you to post a Christmas flyer on 20 December. By 20 December the woman flying in from Houston has already chosen who she is buying from, and it was not decided in Lagos.
Detty December starts in mid-November, not on the 18th
The season is far longer than the festival. Detty December Fest 2026 is scheduled for 18 to 30 December in Lagos, with Wizkid on the opening night. But BusinessDay reported that last season ran about 55 days, from mid-November 2025 to 10 January 2026, with roughly 3.6 million participants. The same report put consumer spending across that window at about ₦396.54 billion, with diaspora visitors accounting for 55 per cent of it.
So the season is eight weeks, not two, and more than half the money belongs to people who do not live here. The calendar you should be working to opened last week.
The customer you want is not in Nigeria yet
People book December travel months ahead, because waiting is expensive. One Nigerian travel guide notes that a Lagos to London fare costing ₦700,000 in October can reach ₦1.3 million or more by mid-December, and advises booking in August or September for a December trip.
Read that from your shop's side. The person who will spend money with you on 22 December bought her ticket in September. Right now her dates are fixed and she is doing the next thing: deciding what she will eat, wear and buy when she gets here. She is doing it on Instagram and TikTok, from a flat in Peckham or Houston, with no way to walk in and check.
She is researching this week, she has money set aside, and almost nobody is selling to her yet.
Sell a slot in November, not a product
Take a two-person ready-to-wear studio off Bode Thomas in Surulere. Every December runs the same way. The DMs start on about 21 December, all of them asking for an outfit for a party on the 24th. The machines are already full, so most of those messages get a polite no. Then January is empty.
The fix is not better flyers in December. It is selling the December calendar in November.
In the first week of November the studio posts its fitting schedule: how many slots exist for the week of 15 December, what each one costs, and the last date to be measured. Measurements are taken on a video call for anyone still abroad, with a short clip showing how to hold the tape. Fabric gets cut before anyone lands. A customer arriving on the 19th collects on the 22nd because her slot was paid for on 8 November.
None of that needs software. It needs you to decide this week what your business runs out of first in December, and then to sell that limit instead of apologising for it. A table at 8pm on the 26th. Ten hampers. Four braiding appointments. Delivery inside Lekki on the 24th.
A limit you announce in November is an offer. The same limit discovered in December is a lost sale.
What a visitor needs to find on your page in ten seconds
A returning customer has one afternoon of patience and four vendors saved. The page that gets the order answers her practical questions without a DM:
- Where you actually are, as a landmark and an area. She is routing around Lagos traffic with someone else driving.
- Whether a person abroad can pay you. Say which cards or transfers work from outside Nigeria, because this question kills more December sales than price does.
- Whether you deliver, where, and by when. "We deliver to hotels on the Island, order by 21 December" is worth more than a month of pretty photos.
Put those three in your bio, in a pinned post, and in the caption of anything seasonal. The visitor seeing your page for the first time on 14 December did not see the post you made in November.
A posting plan from now to the first week of January
Four blocks, four jobs.
Early November is for the offer itself. Publish the slots, the cut-off dates and the payment answer. Two posts a week is enough.
Late November is for proof. Show last year's work, the actual parcel, the actual plate, the queue outside at 9pm. Nigeria's sale window runs through most of this month, and we have written separately about when to start posting for Black Friday if you are discounting too.
The first half of December is for the people already here and everyone still choosing. Post daily if you can, and let the bio answers earn their keep.
The 18th to the 30th you will be working, not posting. Whatever you want published that fortnight should be written and scheduled before the 15th, because you will be on your feet.
Then the quiet tail. The season runs to about 10 January, visitors are still spending, and most competitors have stopped posting. One post on the 2nd about January availability tends to pick up the orders December was too busy to take.
If writing eight weeks of posts in advance is the part that never happens, that is the honest case for a tool that plans and schedules the week for you. Threadovo builds the week from holidays and real demand, writes the captions for each platform, makes the flyer, and publishes on the schedule you approved in November, so the 22nd looks after itself. Pricing starts at ₦39,000 a month with a 14-day trial. It will not tell you how many braiding slots you have. That part is yours.
When this plan is wrong for your business
Detty December is a bad bet for some businesses, and it is worth saying which.
If your product needs a repeat local customer, a visitor who leaves on 5 January is not worth rebuilding December around. A gym, a school, a monthly service: your season is January, and the posts should say so.
If you sell something that cannot be carried onto a plane, the diaspora share of that ₦396 billion is not really available to you. Chase the Lagos crowd instead, which is a different plan with different timing.
Watch card payments from abroad. One review of the season notes that some diaspora customers file chargebacks on December spending, which leaves you carrying the loss weeks later. For anything large, a transfer that has cleared beats a card you cannot verify.
Be realistic about what daily posting costs you. THEWILL reported on 28 October 2026 that in a Renewable Energy Association of Nigeria survey of 1,026 women-led small businesses, nearly half were spending ₦2,000 to ₦5,000 a day on generator fuel, with petrol at ₦1,350 to ₦1,450 a litre. Filming and uploading four Reels a day on top of that is a real cost, not a free channel. Three posts a week that answer the payment and delivery questions will beat fourteen that do not.
Questions people ask
When should I start posting for Detty December?
The first two weeks of November, because visitors fixed their travel dates months ago and are choosing vendors now. Last season ran from mid-November to about 10 January, so a plan that begins on 15 December arrives at the halfway point.
Is Detty December only useful for businesses in Lagos?
No, but the money is concentrated there. A business in Ibadan or Enugu usually does better aiming at domestic travel, family gatherings and gifting than at the festival crowd.
How do I sell to a diaspora customer who is not in Nigeria yet?
Make the payment method and the cut-off date the clearest things on your page, take measurements or order details over a video call, and sell a dated slot rather than a vague promise. People will pay weeks ahead for certainty that something will be ready when they land.
Should I run ads during Detty December?
Only if your page already answers the delivery and payment questions, because December ad costs rise with everyone else's budgets and traffic sent to a page that cannot close a sale is wasted. Point any spend at one dated offer rather than at your profile.
What should I post between Christmas and New Year?
Your January availability, and whatever you can still deliver before the 10th. Most competitors go quiet that week, so a plain post about what is in stock reaches people with nobody left to serve them.