The Sizing Tax: West Africa Fashion Report 2026

West African fashion brands are losing an estimated ₦461 million every year to a problem most of them have never measured. That problem is sizing: the gap between what a customer needs to know about how a garment will fit her body, and what a brand tells her before she buys.

Over six weeks, eleven of the region's most recognised fashion brands were audited across five dimensions of sizing intelligence: the quality of their size charts, how fit is communicated on product pages, the support available before purchase, the confidence their return policies create, and the overall clarity of the product page. Each brand was scored out of 100 on a framework built for this research. The average was 41. No brand scored A.

The cost of that gap is estimated at ₦38 million a month across the eleven brands: purchases abandoned for lack of fit confidence, returns driven by wrong-size deliveries, and customers lost after a poor sizing experience. Across three scenarios the annual Sizing Tax ranges from ₦230 million to ₦734 million. The moderate estimate is ₦461 million.

The brands did not create this problem on purpose. They have invested in photography, identity and craft. What they have not invested in is the infrastructure between a customer and a confident purchase: a size chart with centimetre measurements, a fit note on the product page, a WhatsApp line for pre-purchase questions, and a return window that works for an African buyer.

The report names the problem, measures it brand by brand, and tells each brand where to start.