How I Made $245 (NGN50,000) in a Week Importing Product From China

“Is this possible?” I heard someone screaming at the title of this post.
It was late in the evening; the light of the sun is not completely gone down the horizon. I was in my bed playing some cool music and looking at my roommate, very curious to know what he was doing with his GTBank credit Card typing in his newly purchased 7’ Tablet.


I was living with a friend, a course mate, who was an ecommerce enthusiast. We just got a placement with the biggest oil servicing film in Port Harcourt; and it was probably the second month of our internship. On this fateful day, I was completely fed up with seeing him play with his credit card on the internet. I summon courage to ask him how buying things on the internet works. He just smiled with brilliant expression and said “it is very risky”.

He went ahead to tell me that almost all his gadgets are gotten from abroad, China to be precise, and they are “dead” cheap. I inquired on how he was able to send money to these guys in china and how his product got to him. He started an evening “online tutorial class” with me. The class was so interesting that I decided to take the risk. Like someone once said: take the risk and join the millionaire.

My first problem

After I made the decision to start buying directly from china at a cheap price, a huge problem aroused. “How do I send money to someone I haven’t seen and will never see, and expect the person to send me a product?” “How do I trust these folks?” It was obvious to me that my problem is a matter of trust inflated by the presence of fear, and for the fact that I haven’t heard this before.

On considering this questions, I asked myself a question that change my life as a businessman. If my friend have trusted this online china seller and have not been defrauded, why should I fear? My confidence skyrocketed. If he can do it, I can do it too.


MY first Transaction

You know, you cannot completely water down fear, especially when it has to do with money. I decided to invest as little as $18. I place order for the 2 piece of 64GB memory card. In less than a mouth, the Postman came knocking in my office. I received the parcel. When I opened it, it was exactly what I saw on the website. I was thrilled. “This is so cool” I said. 2 piece of 64GB memory card just for $18. That about NGN3000 then. I quickly checked online to see how much that capacity is sold is Nigeria. I can’t believe my eyes - NGN8,000!. Oh my God!!!! This is so huge a profit.

This was the beginning of my journey in what is called “ Mini Importation Business”.

My objective of writing this piece is to give you the working principles of how to succeed in the high risk mini importation business. I am so sorry that I may not be able to tell you everything I have learnt, my mistakes and breakthroughs; but I am going to share with you the 3 principle that made me hit my first NGN50,000 in just a week. Remember if I can do it, you can do it too.

The principles are:


Take the risk

Risk is very important if you really want to succeed in any field. You need to be decisive and dauntless. After the e-buying technique have been handed to me by my roommate. I risk my $18 dollars. This is the foundation of my business.
In taking risk in any endeavor, care must be taken to ensure that the risk is well calculated and analysed. This is needed to minimize the possibility of turning out bad. When my $18 product landed in my office. My confidence in the website and the business procedure was established. I realised that I can trust this guys with more money and expect a product in less than a month.

Risk management and analysis is a valuable skill any prospective business person should possess.


Discover a pressing problem

Business is all about solving problems. Your clients and customers pay you for solving their problems. How money you could make from your clients is a function of how pressing the problem is to them. The higher the importance of solving the problem, the higher the charge to solve the problem. In my case, I saw a pressing problem. I discovered that the need of memory device is my working place is high. Staffs were always borrowing flash drive and memory device from each other. I decided to solve this problem.

My luck came when I showed some friends the 64GB memory cards and offered it for sale for as cheap as NGN3500 each. I sold them the same day. That’s over 100% profit on each of the memory card. I was so convinced that this is the right trend that I ordered large quantity of 500GB, I sold for NGN7,000. I made a profit of 250% on each of the flash. Isn’t this so cool?


Design a workable market strategy

No matter how pressing the problem is and the available of a quality problem, without creating adequate awareness on the available of the product and explicitly defining your selling point, no sale will be recorded. For an emerging economy like that of Nigeria, price is always the selling point. Knowing this, I used the price strategy as my selling point. I decided to construct a feasible working marketing plan for selling the flash drive. I used what I called “door-to-door” marketing strategy to distribute my product in my confinement within the company. This was so successful that I sold almost all my flash drives. When I prepared my balance sheet, can you imagine the profit?

This is how I made $245 in just a week.


Warning:

This requires virtue of patient in waiting for the product to land to Nigeria, a huge thinking time in designing the marketing strategy, and the talking time with your prospective buyers.

If you really enjoy this piece, tell me how you feel. If you have any question in any of my methods, please use the comment box for more clarity.

Comments

  1. Business is all about solving problems. Your clients and customers pay you for solving their problems. How money you could make from your clients is a function of how pressing the problem is to them. The higher the importance of solving the problem, the higher the charge to solve the problem. In my case, I saw a pressing problem. What are the benefits of working as a translator? It was obvious to me that my problem is a matter of trust inflated by the presence of fear, and for the fact that I haven’t heard this before.

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