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How to Make Money in Nigeria Importing Goods from Abroad

How to Make Money in Nigeria Importing Goods from Abroad

Mini Importation as it is popularly called in Nigeria is the business of buying small and portable products abroad and bringing them down to your country to resell to local buyers, users or consumers without having to travel abroad. Mini Importation is a branch of e-commerce and it is one of the best and hottest online/home business to look at in 2019.

Importation business generally is not new in Nigeria. However, only a few Nigerians actually knew about this lucrative business. I can still remember receiving a business card several years ago with a bold inscription “Importers, Exporters & General Merchandise”. For a moment, I thought within me “This guy must be a big man“. Actually, the importation business was a business exclusive to the Igbos (our brothers and sisters from the east). These people grew from bringing petty items into importing large containers load of goods; cars, electronics, clothes, and textile materials, frozen foods, furniture, building materials, and almost anything you can think of.

It is no longer a secret that Nigeria is a consuming nation, always depending on imported goods to survive. Even the smallest things like toothpicks, earbud, chewing gum and sweet, knife and spoon, etc are all imported (Thanks to our government). In fact, if you want to know how many things that come into this country on daily basis, you don’t need to go to Apapa to count the number of containers coming in; just look at a young woman close to you especially the ones that call themselves slay queens. From Hair, eyelashes, Eyebrows, lipstick, face powder, earring, and necklace, bra, nails, eyeball, undies, to anything you can think of are all “Not Made in Nigeria”. Nigerians import these items mainly from China, USA, Dubai or the UK. This is why the Igbo men who knew about this business a long time ago are super rich, this is also one of the reasons they don’t want to leave Lagos because that is where their business and money is (Apapa wharf).

In this post, I want to expose to you free of charge, how you can make money importing things from abroad. However, this does not mean that you will make money and become super rich because you decided to import just “anything” you want with the hope that people will just rush and buy everything from you. No sir/ma! There are tips and techniques, steps as well as secrets to every business on the surface of the earth, whether online or offline.

Therefore, I will be showing you how to source good sellable products to import, how and where to sell your imported items/products as fast as possible, how to use different sales channels such Jumia, Konga and others for free, Social Media selling techniques (Facebook, Instagram, etc), how to sell your imported products fast using free and paid advertisement and many more.

Mini Importation Business in Nigeria – Steps and Processes

mini imported items mini imported items

As I said earlier, Mini Importation is the business of buying products abroad and resell to local buyers in your country without having to travel abroad. The keyword here is “Having to Travel Abroad”. That is to say, you will be doing virtually everything from the comfort of your room.  You don’t need any travel ticket or Visa to China or USA before you can become a mini importer.

Things You Need For Mini Importation.

In order to succeed in the importation business in Nigeria, the following are the items/materials you will need..

  •  Smartphone or Computer with Google Chrome Browser.
  •  E-commerce Website to Buy From
  •  Reliable Logistics/Shipping Company
  •  Startup Capital
  •  A dedicated Email address ( I will tell you why later)

SmartPhone/Computer with Google Chrome Browser:

Why Google Chrome? To me, it is the best mobile/web browser available at the moment. Apart from that, the Google Chrome browser has an inbuilt language translator to help you translate native websites (Chinese websites) to English easily. When I started mini importation, I didn’t know about some this. The Chinese have wholesale websites where their manufacturers sell their products at wholesale prices. Prices on these websites are so cheap that you will be wondering if they are genuine products. Unfortunately, these websites are in the Chinese language, therefore, you ordinarily need to understand their language before you can buy from there but with Google Chrome, this barrier has been broken.

E-commerce Website

This is the e-commerce website where you will be shopping from. Let me tell you that there a thousand and one websites out there that you can buy from but not all of them is good for business. Below are a few of the e-commerce websites I have personally shopped from; Amazon.com, Ebay.com, Walmart.com, Aliexpress.com, Alibaba.com, dhgate.com, lightinthebox.com, miniinthebox.com, taobao.com, 1688.com, etc.

Logistics/Shipping Company

This company will be in charge of shipping your products to Nigeria. I know you will ask me, Why not DHL, UPS or FedEx? DHL and other express courier companies above are reliable and fast but they are also very expensive, therefore will eat into your profit. Mini importers make use of logistics companies because they are not only fast, they are also affordable compared to the courier companies. Some Logistics companies can even help you source your products from Chinese websites, confirm that the products are genuine and help you make payment while you pay to them in Naira. Your job is just to tell them what you want and they do all the buying, packaging and shipping while you cross your leg and wait for your ‘container’ to land. Isn’t that awesome?

Startup Capital

You will need some money to buy and ship your products. 10k, 20k, 50k, 100k, etc depending on your strength and what you intend importing too.

Dedicated Email Address

You will need a dedicated email address for correspondences. I need to remind you that Chinese men and women are aggressively desperate when it comes to business so once you register on their website, they will ‘kill’ you with emails except you unsubscribe. As at today, I have received a total of 2043 emails from Miniinthebox.com alone, just 1 website o.

So far, I have been able to list out the things we need to successfully kickstart our mini importation business. In my next email, I will be practically showing you how to and where to source for cheap products that you can sell with up to 2X to 5X profit. Stay tuned!

If you like this article, I ask that you share it on your social media platforms.

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Ecommerce – What Does It Mean Exatly?

What is ecommerce
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What is ecommerce?

Ecommerce or electronic commerce simply means conducting business online. Do you remember the definition of commerce back in secondary school? Let me remind you in case you have forgotten. “Commerce is defined as the exchange of goods and services”.
E-commerce is the process of buying and selling products over the internet.

Human beings have been involved in the business of buying and selling since the existence of the human race. However, trading over the internet only became possible with the introduction of the World Wide Web (www) to the general public in August 1991.
Since then, the internet has affected and is still affecting the way we do things, it has evolved from just a place where we can get information to where we live our lives especially with the social media.

The e-commerce industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. In 2017 alone, retail e-commerce sales worldwide amounted to about 2.3 trillion. Also, e-retail revenues are projected to hit $4.5 trillion in 2021. (Statista Global retail e-commerce sales 2014-2021). What does this tell you? The industry is growing geometrically and this growth is not expected to slow down soon, at least not now. In the US, and other growing economies of the world, e-commerce is a serious business that is why the oldest and also biggest e-commerce websites are located there. In Africa and Nigeria in particular, e-commerce business is growing faster than you can ever imagine. Some Nigerians are already making millions of Naira importing goods from China and reselling in Nigeria. While some currently sell through their online stores, some sell on other established online marketplace like Jumia and Konga while others sell on Social Media like Facebook, Instagram etc. OLX and Jiji are still good places where you can list your products and sell to people within your locality. This business concept is what Nigerians referred to as Mini Importation.

Statista ecommerce sales report 2019

However, as interesting as e-commerce business may sound, there are some imminent problems that one should consider before venturing into it. Some of those problems are; a pile-up of unsold stocks, courier and delivery, payment issues. However, all of these problems can be handled with proper research and mentoring. I will be sharing tips and strategies on how to source for hot products cheaper, ship them to Nigeria within few days and how to sell them to people who have money waiting to buy from you. This is not rocket science, all of these come with time. Stay tuned!
What if I tell you that you can actually sell to anybody anywhere on earth without physically meeting them, or having to bother about payment and shipping? This business concept is known as dropshipping. The dropshipping concept allows you to run a semi-automated where you can sell products to
Parties Involved in E-commerce

ALSO READ: HOW TO MAKE MONEY IN NIGERIA IMPORTING GOODS FROM ABROAD

For e-commerce to be truly successful, there must be a minimum of 3 parties involved. These are; buyer, the buyer, and the channel. By channel, I mean mediums through which e-commerce activities can be carried out. Example, on websites such as Amazon, eBay, Alibaba.com, Aliexpress.com, dhgate.com. Amazon and eBay are amongst the earliest and popular ecommerce websites in the world. While Amazon was founded in 1994, eBay in 1995 while Alibaba in 1999.
Another channel through which people buy and sell is Social Media. In fact, a greater percentage of sales now happen on Social Media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Twitter, etc. There are thousands of ecom businesses who rely only on these social media platforms to start and consummate sales without having a website. Even those with websites make use of social media to acquire new customers as well as keep existing ones.

Popular E-commerce Websites

There are thousands of e-commerce websites in the world that no single person will be able to mention. However, I will be sharing some popular ones I have personally used or I am familiar with. As time progresses, I will be writing individually on these websites for the sake of those who haven’t used them but may be willing to try them in the future. Listed below are some popular ecommerce websites I have personally used.

Amazon

eBay
Walmart

Alibaba

Taobao 

1688 

Dhgate

Flipkart

Newegg

Apart from the ones I listed above, there are also some successful and reliable ecommerce websites in Nigeria where you can shop with peace of mind. Jumia and Konga are clearly leading in this regard.

How to Make Money in ecommerce

There are a thousand and one ways to make money from the ecommerce business. However, I will be focusing on three 3 core areas; Mini Importation, Dropshipping, and e-commerce website design and development. Actually, these areas are the ones I have explored and currently involved in so I am in a better position to tell you. In subsequent articles, I will be explaining how exactly you can make money from e-commerce through any of these means. The e-commerce industry is very huge and very profitable. You can Jeff Bezos, Jack Ma and even recently Kylie Jenner

Do you have ANY experience in e-commerce? Share your thoughts using the comment box. Share this article with your friends and loved ones on Facebook.