HOW TO MAKE MONEY ON E-COMMERCE

                                                     
                                                     E-COMMERCE BUSINESS




I am sure you must have read a lot on different e-commerce businesses online, especially those ones that focus more on IMPORTATION BUSINESS. However, this article will not follow such trend of importation business, but look at another dimension of making some cool cash from E-commerce.

Before looking at the new dimension that this article will focus on, it is important that we look at what IMPORTATION BUSINESS is all about, its merits and its demerits.

IMPORTATION means the act of buying goods/products from outside the country (outside Nigeria, for instance) and shipping it into one’s country. For instance, let us say I want to buy some pieces of nice wears in the United States of America, all that I will do is look out for a trusted U.S. e-commerce site that sells those nice wears, buy from the site and my nice wears will be shipped in to Nigeria.

A lot of Nigerians see this as an opportunity to pitch their businesses around this simply because goods/products bought outside the country are relatively cheaper compared to that which bought in Nigeria. So, they name themselves IMPORTERS.

E-commerce business comes in when importers decide to sell their imported goods/products online. This is why they call it E-COMMERCE, meaning ELECTRONIC COMMERCIALISATION (that is, selling online). They advertise their products to people online instead of taking their products from one market to another. This is easier, stress-less, risk-free and profitable. Examples of  some e-commerce sites that people use to advertise their imported products are JIJI.com, JUMIA and others.

Let me give you an instance of a trusted Chinese site that most Nigerians use for importation. It is 1688.com. On this site, you can buy directly from a manufacturer at a very cheaper price. For instance, a pair of trousers may cost 15yuan which is approximately 850naira. When importers import it in to Nigeria, they may decide to sell it as high as 4000naira. The profit margin is 3150naira. Imagine this!

However, there are a lot of disadvantages that usually stuck in importers in this kind of business. They wont tell you the truth when you go meet them to expose you to importation business. I once had an encounter sometime last year (in 2018). The person, who was in-charge of orders process, eloped with our money and is yet to refund it. It was a group order because of the high charges on MOU. Till now, we haven’t had anything about the products we ordered. I personally ordered some set of nice bags.

Another disadvantages are high clearance at either the sea-port or airport when those products arrive, fake products, seizure of goods, high market competition, amongst others. This is why you see a lot of importers having problems with value-price, beating off market competition, stocking products for so long, and so on. Imagine you buy a pair of trousers on 1688.com for 20yuan (that is, 20*58=1160naira) and you pay 1000naira for clearance at the port and 300naira to transport it to your destination, everything costs you 2460naira. In truth, how much do you think you can add to it to compete with those IGBO guys who sell the same stuff at cheaper prices? Or, how much do you think you can add to beat your online store competitors? It is really crazy, I must confess.

Nevertheless, E-commerce business is a very lucrative business that you can venture in if only you know the right source. There are a lot of people who only buy from local stores and sell at a very expensive price online. I tell you, this is a kind of business that you can do instead of importing from outside the country. By doing this, you save yourself the stress and headache of monitoring your goods as they are being shipped into the country.

There are many local stores you can buy goods from at a cheaper price, and sell at a very expensive price. I have a friend who is really into this, and she makes a killing profit on all her products. She buys nice wears at cheaper prices from local stores and sells both offline and online at expensive prices that are relatively cheaper to that of the importers. The truth is, there is no way you will know that her products are from local stores, here in Nigeria, except she tells you. She packages everything very well.

Examples of Nigerian local stores you can buy from are ALABA MARKET in Lagos, COMPUTER VILLAGE in Lagos, ONISHA for nice shoes and wears, amongst others. These stores have cheap products that you can’t imagine. All that you have got to do is think about what exactly you want to be selling, sort out for where you can buy them in Nigeria and advertise them online. You can register on JUMIA as a seller/advertiser, attend their training on how to kick-start and start selling. I have a mentor that buys at COMPUTER VILLAGE at ridiculous prices and sells at high prices on JUMIA. In short, JUMIA usually calls her for products supply whenever products are out of stock.

In a nutshell, don’t give yourself headache importing goods; the process is really expensive. You can buy from local stores, publish your products online and let those e-commerce sites help you sell them at your price on small commission. The sweet part of this is that, you can be doing some other things/businesses while JUMIA sells your products for you. In this way, you make more money than those importers who only care about FAKE and imported goods.