express warranty
Express warranty is a clear promise, spoken or written, that a seller makes about a product or service, and that the law expects them to honour.
In plain English
A trader at Alaba market tells you the generator will run for five years without trouble, and writes it on the receipt. A different trader at the same market just shrugs and says, 'buy am, if e no work na your problem'. That difference is the whole story of an express warranty. One seller made a promise you can hold in your hand. The other made none, and left you holding only hope.
An express warranty is a specific, stated promise about what a product or service will do, or how long it will last, or what the seller will do if it fails. It can be spoken, written on a receipt, printed in a manual, or splashed across an advert. The key word is stated. Nobody has to guess or assume, because the seller said it out loud or put it in writing.
Say you run a small business in Lagos selling generators. If you tell a customer, 'this set will give you three years of steady power, and if it breaks down from a factory fault within that time, we will repair or replace it free', you have just created an express warranty. You are not being generous. You are making a legal promise that your customer can point back to if things go wrong.
In the United Kingdom, this shows up constantly in consumer law, where a seller who advertises 'guaranteed two year warranty' on a laptop cannot later refuse a repair by claiming they never really meant it. The written words on the box or the receipt become the standard everyone is held to.
For someone in the diaspora sending money home to help a relative start a shop, this matters more than it seems. If your relative is selling phones or appliances, teaching them to write clear express warranties builds trust with customers, and trust is what keeps a small business alive long after the first sale.
A phone dealer in Computer Village tells a customer in writing, 'this phone comes with a six month warranty covering screen and battery faults'. Three months later the battery dies from normal use. The customer has a right to a free repair, because the dealer's own written words created that promise, not goodwill, not mood, not luck.
Questions people ask
Is an express warranty the same as a guarantee?
They are close cousins and people often use the words interchangeably. In everyday Nigerian business, a guarantee usually just means the same thing as an express warranty, a stated promise about quality or performance that the seller has agreed to stand behind.
What happens if a seller breaks an express warranty?
The buyer can usually demand a repair, a replacement, or a refund, depending on what the warranty itself promised. If the seller refuses, the buyer can take the matter to a consumer protection body or, for bigger amounts, to court, using the seller's own written or spoken words as proof.
Do I need a lawyer to write an express warranty for my small business?
Not for a simple one. Many small business owners write clear, honest warranty terms themselves, stating exactly what is covered, for how long, and what the customer should do if something fails. A lawyer becomes useful once your business grows and the warranty needs to cover more complicated products or bigger money.
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