You’ll find this post very useful whether you’re just starting out in Mini importation business or you’ve been there for quite some time. These are mini importation business tips everyone running the business should know.
When I started Mini importation business, I went in without much research into the market dynamics.
It’s not just about importing anything people respond to OR you feel people will respond to.
There are certain items you’ll bring in and you’ll have a lot of headache selling them off.
In this post, I have listed some boxes to check before importing products if you’re really interested in making pure profits.
1. Go for products that have nothing to do with size or measurement.
I remember bringing in some gowns and heck, I found it difficult to sell off those gowns.
Some were tight, others were loose….how will you be sure you’re going to get customers who’ll like the exact specs you have?
You may find customers whose sizes fit your products but that will be after you must have spent thousands of Naira on Facebook ads.
Shoes, gowns are great if you have a list of people you are ordering it for, but if you’re going in blind…… you may end up with sizes that people may want but won’t like the color………or colors they may like but the size won’t fit them.
If you must bring in shoes, go for sizes 39 and 40 and for gowns, 12 and 14….that’s if you are ordering female items.
As for colors, solid colors are always better and you will never go wrong with them.
Now if you can think of any products that doesn’t require sizes to be used then you already have a winner in your Mini importation business.
The next thing to do is to gauge the market to know if they will want it.
Don’t ask me for examples of such products….lol.
2. First test the water with your toe before jumping in.
This one cost me a lot before I learnt my lesson in Mini Importation business.
You look at a product with the eyes of the customer and you think to yourself, ‘these ladies will love this, then you run to order’.
At the end of the day, you run your ads and nobody responds to it or the prospects engage you and immediately you quote price, the prospect disappears.
The pains of Mini importation business….hahaha.
It simply means the products doesn’t interest them enough. It could be from the picture or the ad copy or from their perception of that type of product.
So how do you tackle this challenge?
By first running ads, you will be able to tell which products engage better and focus on them when importing.
Ideally, run your ads for about 3 days to gauge interest properly.
N3,000 at N1,000 daily should do the trick.
READ: How to run an effective Facebook ads campaign
3. Over-pricing your goods.
Where the money is in Mini importation business is marginal profit multiplied by massive turnover.
It’s not about buying at N1,500 and selling one or two items at N15,000.
Nope, it’s simply like any other buying and selling business.
Make a profit but have a high turnover rate.
Instead of chasing customers away with price when they respond to your ad, go with a reasonable price.
Funny enough, you can easily sell off your items easily at 5 times the original price.
But most folks want to sell at 10 times, even 15 times the cost price.
This won’t fly all the time….if you can get 5 times your cost price per unit of product, by all means, go ahead and sell of your goods and bring in new stuff.
Rinse and repeat.
Every prospect that engages with your ad should be converted into a buying customer.
This is the way to sell of everything quickly while covering your cost price, ad budget and still make profit.
4. Keep a list of people who contacted you or bought from you before.
Whether phone numbers, emails or Facebook names, the rules of list building remains the same.
If someone showed interest in your product or service before, the person is likely to show interest again in future.
In this regard, store up names, emails or phone numbers of leads, prospects and customers and engage them from time to time.
It could be via a Whatsapp broadcast, an email newsletter or manually chat them up on Facebook messenger.
It might sound like hard work but it’s marketing. If you want to sell, you got to market your business.
Moreover, building a list like this will save you expenses from running excessive ads.
READ: How to make money from your Email List
Well, these 4 tips are from my experience so far running a buoyant Mini-importation business, of course there are more tips involved which I will reveal in my Mini-importation business 2.0 class soon.
If you implement these strategies, your results will be far from average.
Questions? Ask.
Don’t forget to share too!