On 2 September, Uber stopped operating in Nigeria after about 12 years.
For drivers who depended on the platform, this was not simply another business headline. The app that connected them to customers was suddenly no longer available.
Now bring that question closer to your own business.
What would happen if Instagram suspended your account tonight? What if the marketplace where most of your orders come from shut down? What if your payment provider froze your account or your dispatch partner stopped operating in your area?
Would customers still know how to reach you tomorrow?
Access Is Not the Same as Ownership
A platform can help you reach thousands of people, but that does not mean you own the relationship.
You may have 20,000 followers and still have no customer phone numbers, email addresses or order history outside the platform. You may receive steady orders through an online marketplace but have no independent website, customer list or alternative sales channel.
The danger is easy to miss because everything works well until it does not.
Platforms can change their rules, increase their charges, restrict an account, suffer an outage or leave a market. You may not receive enough notice to prepare.
This does not mean you should stop using platforms. It means your entire business should not disappear with one of them.
Calculate Your Platform-Dependency Score
Give yourself one point for every “yes” answer:
- Does one platform bring in more than half of your enquiries or sales?
- Would you lose your customer contacts if you lost access to it?
- Are active orders, payment records or important conversations stored only there?
- Do you have no second channel that customers already recognise?
- Would sales stop for more than 48 hours if the platform disappeared?
A score of zero or one means your risk is relatively controlled. Two or three means you need a stronger backup. Four or five means one company’s decision could stop your business.
Build a 48-Hour Backup Plan
Start with your customers. Collect contact details appropriately during enquiries and sales. A simple customer record can include the person’s name, phone number, email address, what they purchased and permission to receive future updates. Keep it securely outside the platform and respect customers who do not want marketing messages.
Next, choose a second way to sell. If Instagram is your main channel, this could be WhatsApp Business, a basic website or an email list. If a marketplace brings most of your orders, create a direct ordering process customers can also use.
Do not wait until there is a crisis to open the alternative channel. Put it on your receipts, packaging, invoices and profiles now, then give customers a reason to use it.
Also decide what happens during the first 48 hours of a disruption.
In the first six hours, confirm what happened, pause advertising linked to the affected platform, record outstanding orders and balances, and secure any available data.
Within 24 hours, activate your backup channel and tell customers where they can reach you. Use the channels you already control rather than relying on rumours or creating several new accounts in a panic.
Within 48 hours, reconcile orders and payments, contact affected customers, and assign one person to manage updates while the rest of the team keeps fulfilling work.
Do Not Wait for a Shutdown
Once every quarter, test the plan. Can you export your customer and order records? Are recovery details current? Can another authorised person access essential business tools? Do you have a second payment option and another delivery contact?
The goal is not to abandon the platforms helping your business grow. Use them fully, but build something you control beside them.
Because followers are useful, marketplace traffic is valuable and apps can make business easier. But your customer relationships, records and ability to keep trading should never belong entirely to somebody else’s platform.
