Small businesses one can do in Nigeria

Posted by Felix Okoli on Tuesday April 2, 2013 at 20:19:41:

If you are a start up investor and looking for a way to start doing business in Nigeria without having to raise too much capital, well Nigeria is a friendly environment for many small businesses but you should just remember to pay your taxes when you start making profit.

To make money in Nigeria, you would either have to sell a product or offer a service in exchange for money and that's what makes the economy survive.

Here are small businesses I see people doing everyday in Lagos state:

- Airtime vending: This is common everywhere and one can sell recharge cards or offer Virtual top up service. It brings in a small profit in the short term but more in the long term since the market is huge.

- Provision selling: People need to buy provision from time to time and people who offer such products in stores are common. All one needs to do is buy them at wholesale prices from the distributors or producers and then retail them for profit. Provisions tend to have a much longer shelve life before expiry and so you should try selling them at good profit within the short term.

- Food processing and packaging: This is a cool business to do if you know how to. It involves producing and packing food for retailing it to end users. Hot selling items include chin-chin, plantain chips,

- Roadside food selling: There are common in populated cities like Lagos. You'd see a lot of food vendors making brisk business selling akara, fried yam. roast yam, fish, eggs and fruits. Some operate in the morning while others operate in the night.

- Video club rentals and sales: This is a popular service patronized by sit at home moms, students and youths who have more time to spend watching movies. Video rentals bring in about N50 per day and 2 days rent would probably cover the cost of a VCD plate so it's profitable.

- Dry cleaning service: It could be a small scale pickup or large scale cleaning service. Target customers include busy young people as well as old people who would rather pay to wash than wash their clothes themselves.

- Ice block production: People constantly have the need to cool food and drinks. Storing Energy in form of ice-blocks is a good business. A kg of ice sells for about N50 in Lagos.

- Event services: Just organizing special events like birthdays, weddings and parties can be a profitable business. You job is just to make things organized, provide a package for people and get a commission for doing so.

- Transportation services: e.g. Motorcycle, Tricycles, buses and taxis. The need to move is constant daily and you can offer the service to public of private individuals. You can offer the service at public parks or from private parks.