10 Ways to Make Money Selling Vegetables in Nigeria

10 Ways to Make Money Selling Fruits and Vegetables in Nigeria

Vegetables and fruits among other food items contain vitamin and minerals required to maintain and improve one’s health. As the result, there is always a high demand for fruits and vegetables which sometimes outstrip supplies. As such, selling vegetables is a profitable business which if properly harnessed can produce the consistent profits which can sustain one. Therefore, on this article, we will explore the 10 ways to make money selling vegetables in Nigeria.

Before we go ahead, let’s correct an impression which is very common among Nigeria. There is this mindset we have that the selling of vegetables are meant for illiterates and the uneducated who do not have any other way to make money. When you consider the fact that a fruit or vegetable may sell over five times the cost price from the farm to the marketplace you can imagine how much you would be making if you can find a way to exploit the value chain. The following points listed below show you how to do that:

Also read 12 Ways to Profit from the Tomato Value Chain in Nigeria

 

1. Source for the Vegetables Cheaply: Buy low and selling high is always the mantra to follow when entering any business that involves trading. It is your ability to source for the fruits and Vegetables at the lowest prices that will ultimately determine your profitability. The easiest way of doing this is to look for the landing point of such fruits and vegetables in your city. All goods have a landing point. This should not be difficult to find as drivers for both taxis and trucks usually can give you the information that you need in order to be able to achieve this. When you finally locate the landing point, you can now negotiate with those trading there to get your fruits and vegetables at lower prices!

 

2. Always Buy in Bulk: Bulk purchasing of fruits and vegetables is one key factor through which your profit will roll in. The larger the purchase, the higher the profitability. Bulk sellers are known to give discounts to those of their clients who are consistent in the purchasing. This is because these buyers produce the required cash flow that such sellers depend on for their business. This would also allow you to position yourself in the marketplace as a brand. People may not realize this but selling also involves positioning. This is a quick way to position yourself without getting too worked up about marketing. The word will naturally spread when people see that you have such fruits and vegetables in bulk.

 

3. Price Cheaply: Having a Lower profit margin when it comes to the selling of fruits and vegetables is one strategy that will produce quick turnover for whosoever engages in such businesses. This is the secret to winning over the competition as most people will prefer to buy from those who have a lower price; as opposed to those that sell at a higher one. You can easily capture the market with your pricing strategy. It is not about having one customer who will give you all the profit in the world. It is about having many customers who will give you little profits from each of them. By the time the gathering of those profits is complete, you will realize that the profit made is more than that single customer who always brings in huge amount of profit. Besides, tying your destiny to one person is no longer business. It is employment. The medicine for fire is two houses. If one day your single customer is no more (be it corporate or personal) what are you going to do then? Having many customers is the secret to unlocking huge amount of profit in business!

 

4. Seek the End User: Many people believe that doing business only involves owning a shop. In the twenty first century the end user is more important than the shop itself. After all, it is the end users’ money that pays the bills. There are people who don’t have the time to go to the market due to their tight schedules. These are the kinds of customers that you would want to have. The easiest way of doing this would be through staff cooperatives. Believe it or not, most large organizations have cooperatives who have steady cash from their members’ contributions. Besides, writing a proposal to supply their members with vegetables will show the cooperative board members that you are a person who is seeking to do business seriously. Another method to employ would be to approach the unions. Their reach to their staff members is even more powerful than those cooperatives. This is due to the labor laws of Nigeria. After the government, unions are the next most powerful institution in Nigeria.

 

5. Use Social Media: These days social media provides a powerful tool for inexpensive marketing. Social media can go where you cannot go. Into the pockets and homes of your potential buyers. Social media has become a very useful tool in making sure that people are able to reach those who matter when it comes to their businesses. This will also separate you and help you to quickly create a brand that sells. The smartest businesses that succeed in the market place are those that utilize leverage to the maximum. Social media cannot be ignored as there are people who have become millionaires overnight through the effective use of social media. You can sell anything on social media and make a profit without breaking a sweat. Social media also includes mobile applications such as whatsapp and telegram and is not limited to traditional social media applications that we are already used to like facebook, instagram and googleplus.

6. Pre-process and Package the Fruits and Vegetables: Pre-processing and packaging of fruits and vegetables is one sure way of increasing the perceived value of such items. When you process a product, the value that such a product has must as a matter of consequence increase. As such, you can now process your vegetables and sell them to those who would appreciate the benefit of preprocessing. There are people who may not have the time to fully process their vegetables at home for consumption and you’re saving them the time of processing for a little extra profit. This also will allow you to have a niche market in which such fruits and vegetables are sold without any hassle as those kinds of clients are very particular about who they buy their items from.

 

7. Sell and Supply Corporately: This is one major money spinner for those who understand how selling corporately works. When it comes to corporate sales, the key component of the ensuring of repeated success is to be able to know who the person that indicates the need for the purchases usually is. Such a person is the procurement officer or the store keeper of that organization. He is the one who can be able to tell you when they are running short of supplies and convince the management that a purchase is necessary. Of course, by now you would have realized that you target markets are hotels, restaurants and eateries where you can easily tender your proposal and obtain a limited purchase order. Understanding that the most powerful people as far as you are concerned when it comes to your business of selling fruits and vegetables are not the upper management but those people who are responsible for the information of the use of those fruits and vegetables is one critical component of your success in corporate sales and supplies. You can find out who they are through simple networking. And when you network successfully you will realize that making money is as simple as counting from one to ten!

 

8. Sell in bulk: Overtime, when you have started making money in the business of the sales and supplies of fruits and vegetables, you will understand that more money is to be made in the bulk sales and supplies of these fruits and vegetables in the first place. When you gather your cash up to the point where you are on your way to becoming a bulk sales and supplies trader, you would have gathered quite a number of contacts within and outside the trading community that would know you well enough to buy from you. This is the key towards making it big in the selling of fruits and vegetables. If you can learn all the tricks of the business (every business has its tricks), then you can also as well go up in the business and thrive.

 

9. Buy on market days: In Nigeria, market days are the days when you can get what you are looking for at rock bottom prices. If you understand the psychology of the market traders, you will know that for them market days are the days when they expect to make the most money and as such they lower their prices for those who want to come and purchase at those prices. You can exploit this by identifying market days and actually purchasing on such.

 

10. Buy directly from the farms: Buying directly from the farms is a great way through which you can get the fruits and vegetables that you sell at the cheapest prices available. This also allows you to undercut the middle man and go directly to the source who you may even offer higher prices than the middle men. The secret truth in Nigeria which most middle men would rather not tell you is that there exists a huge gap between the farmers and the consumers of farm produce which the farmers and the consumers do not know about and the middle men exploit it to their advantage. You can also become a middle man of your own by employing this strategy.

Also read Beans/Cowpea Business plan in Nigeria

 

Selling fruits and vegetables in Nigeria is big business that may seem dirty on one hand but it is actually profitable if you know the tricks and tips to succeeding in the business. Do you have any tips, tricks or strategies which you have used to succeed in the sales of fruits and vegetables? Please feel free to share in the comments below! and if your interested in one of the 10 Ways to Make Money Selling Vegetables in Nigeria and want to start the business, perhaps you need professional advice, call any of our consultants on 081 0563 6015, 080 7635 9735 or send an email to dayohub@gmail.com