Turbocharged: @op. syop fooling urself. U be naija full blood. Your use of words betrayed u.
I wonder what u want to achieve by this write-up.




...I dey smell SCAM

You may be right but what I'm thinking is that he wants to go independent and needs people under him.

davidif:

Wow!!!! who are this policy makers in Naija in the first place? Did they even go to school at all? No wonder a lot of things don't work in the country.

If you understand what she was trying to explain you wouldn't be asking this question. That is the best economic law so far if well implemented.

If you have traveled around the world, you will know Nigeria is great and can be better if only you can do your part. Every little thing you see in Nigeria happens all over the world but, on smaller scales.

iceberylin: The annoying part is Foreigners think Naija is a Great Country....

i jst laugh @ dia stupidiry

Sawadikaa...me Thai bro' hope you enjoying some afang soup/fufu as much as I enjoyed some Thai food last time plus Chang beer. That beer tastes like our Star beer, loved it.

More grease to your elbow, share our Nigeria with others so they know to invest in it. Regardless of any negative comment you may get you, we all love you and wish you the best. Cheers.

MissMeiya:

No. I don't have time to feel sorry for them. I shake my head and move on. I swear, there needs to be a more intelligent version of Nairaland. Maybe with an entrance exam for registration.

You just dey show urself,dey display anyhow 4 hia since. Dy spread anyhow like bread wei dy wan put butter. I jux dy observe,dy reason ur mata. Na babes like u dem suppose dey siddon flog for yansh and tongue.Shey na only u waka com?

There is an adage in Yoruba that says " A man who lost his mother to a mad man, shouldn't be blamed if he takes to his heels when he comes across a ragtag, dirty-looking auto-technician".

In Summary, EXPERIENCE IS A WONDERFUL TEACHER!!

If you believe OP is very likely to be a scammer, you will be right.

If you believe OP is a genuine Thai man, you will be right.

We are all consciously or unconsciously guided mainly by our life experiences.

We all have the right to see things from different angle, all we need do is to be civil even when putting our points across.

While I also have my reservations about some areas that appears not to add up, his write ups about the business is true to a greater extent but major issues such as the devil incarnates called truck drivers in nigeria, getting the honest auto technicians, the check points, LASTMA, etc.

I know that there is a greater demand for haulage business. There are different types of haulage. While some carry containers in and dc out, others carry liquids ( oil tankers), some are into Sand and granites, while others are dedicated to helping factories to haul both raw materials and finished prodcuts on contract.

I am into business,

In all, those who raise alarm means well while others also have the right to heed or disregard too.

It is indeed, a free world.

You can not be too careful but you can be Damn careless.

Wow, the topic has been messed up. Was smooth sailing when it was just two pages. It goes on the front page, and everyone pops up, feeling like Sherlock Holmes. Fact is, real and would be entrepreneurs have already learnt a thing or two......so whatever it is, let him be. If it were to be a scam, and you fell for it, who's fault is that? NL has been run over for real. Everyone deserves respect. It ain't easy out there...here in Nigeria.

Wiinnd: You just dey show urself,dey display anyhow 4 hia since. Dy spread anyhow like bread wei dy wan put butter. I jux dy observe,dy reason ur mata. Na babes like u dem suppose dey siddon flog for yansh and tongue.Shey na only u waka com?

.... What?

sdavirus: Wow, the topic has been messed up. Was smooth sailing when it was just two pages. It goes on the front page, and everyone pops up, feeling like Sherlock Holmes. Fact is, real and would be entrepreneurs have already learnt a thing or two......so whatever it is, let him be. If it were to be a scam, and you fell for it, who's fault is that? NL has been run over for real. Everyone deserves respect. It ain't easy out there...here in Nigeria.

Seriously. You would expect to see comments about business, doing business in Nigeria, people's experiences, and so on. But this is Nairaland now.

Greetings Nairalanders,

I hope I'm not being preachy. I simply wanted to share my experience with you and primarily encourage more foreign investments in Nigeria.


PART 1

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MyIncorp:

The Jibs are in all sectors of the economy, so I'm not surprised.
Good for you you were able to spot good friends/partners in Nigeria; and you are also learning from your previous mistakes.
And the fact that you were able to own up to 5 trucks in just 2 years is commendable especially when the fund is limited.

MyIncorp -- True. Forums like these are also powerful tools that can be used to expose people like Jibs. It will only encourage more fairness, accountability and integrity.

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ayusco85: u have almost become nigerians. setting up a successful business in nigeria is not easy. kudos

Ayusco85 -- Thank you very much for the encouragement!

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shadowwalker101: if they can make it tgen we can make it
[img]http://www.?aff=391[/img]

shadowwalker101 -- Ofcourse!

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Hemanwel: It's an open secret that the Nigerian investment clime gives good return on investment.
Once you have a solid start-up capital,and a fantastic idea,then you are good to go!
Mr Thai,your testimony shall remain permanent!Just ensure a proper welfare plan for your employees.

Hemanwel -- Thankyou! I did like to mention that two of our Nigerian managers are also shareholders of our company. We have such deep personal relationship with each other that we are indeed like a family. That's why I call them my brothers/family. We chat and converse on the telephone nearly everyday. A company can only grow with proper teamwork and unity in vision. I did also like to mention that my MD travels to Nigeria nearly every month and sometimes even on a weekly basis.

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Pavore9: Following....but the English and flow sounds Nigerian!

Pavore9 -- Thanks for your comment and interest! I don't know what to say to this. English is a worlds language. We are in the process of upgrading our website. The upgrade will encourage Transparency, Relationships, Ethics and integrity. We will even upload monthly pictures and videos of our trips and work in Nigeria.

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msmon: Brb!

Back! I don't just have any comment, I rather go through the comments carefully coz I intend to have my own business too. What better way to learn than this?

msmon -- Thank you! I really hope you do! I hope to include more information about the haulage business regarding Transparency and Integrity. There is a funny inside secret too, which should not be a secret actually. I will write it down on my later posts.

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caesaraba: Great topic. Beautiful insight as well. As someone in the transport business, I must agree with the OP that indeed managing drivers is one tough job. You are talking about Nigerians for that matter. The consensus basic instinct across board is to cheat you first before any other thing follows.

Nigeria indeed is not for faint-hearted people foreigners or citizens.

Honestly, as I read your paragraph about building relationships, I started clapping in front of the PC. I`ve learnt a lot this morning from your post and hope to keep tabs on any further updates you make.

caesaraba -- Thank you Abi! The strategy of building relationships was our key "turning point" in our business. Let us connect someday in person and share ideas.

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koning: That's some pretty good English coming from someone from Thailand. Your write up is interesting, but i think you are not revealing your real motive.
Methinks that you are now an Independent transporter in need of more trucks for expansion.

Are you based in Lagos ?.

koning -- Thank you! English is a worlds language now. Although not all Thais know good english, around 30% I think would know proper English. The rest are just horrible at english. But they're slowly starting to realize the importance of English.

Although we are an independent transporter, my original intent was to share my experience and try to explain things from a foreigners viewpoint and the struggles we've been through. We're also strategically located in Dubai. There are alot of investors in Dubai as they are cash rich. Although having Nigerian investors trust us is an honour for us, we believe that most of our investors will most likely come from abroad and Banks from Nigeria. As I type this, we've partnered up with a Nigerian Company to work on a professional business plan that we will pitch to foreign investors and venture capitalist.

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Turbocharged: @op. syop fooling urself. U be naija full blood. Your use of words betrayed u.
I wonder what u want to achieve by this write-up.




...I dey smell SCAM

Turbocharged -- Thanks for your comment. This thread was started with the intent to share personal experience about us doing business in Nigeria and the hard facts about the haulage industry.

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JustCare: This is great! I have always discussed and followed issue to the above regard on nairaland. I understand the huge profit in this business and the big heart and risk involved. it's time to wise up guys. where are my fellow importers on nairaland! it's time to make real money and expand our coast as stipulated by the book ' The Richest Man in Babylon '

JustCare -- Thanks! You are correct! Nigeria is a great place to do business. We could meet up some day and connect.

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CoolHunk: As a young entrepreneur. I find your post very inspiring, even though my line of business is very different. Entrepreneurship in Nigeria is certainly not for the weak or fainthearted. And intelligence plays a huge role also.

CoolHunk -- Thank you! You are absolutely correct! Some call it business intuition. You look at the business from far away and see what am I missing? Why cant I move the business forward? It comes with experience and lots of reading. Had we not changed our strategy to start building relationships, we would have failed. We could meet up someday and connect.

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StealthyMe: Thanks for Sharing your experience @ThaiAlNigeria
Very Inspiring Piece i must say!

But can you please give an estimate capital wise into your start-up haulage business ?

StealthyMe -- Thank you! A 40 footer Daf Tokunbo initially cost us around 7 million Nairas, a 20 footer will cost around 3.2 million - 3.4 million Nairas, a 10 ton will cost around 1.8 million nairas. There will also be additional cost for GIT which is around 450k Nairas for each truck. Changing wheels will also cost alot of money. Get good branded wheels! Changing wheel and additional paper work will cost another 600k Nairas. Total for a 10 ton truck to be in prime condition and fully operational will be around 2.6-2.9 million nairas. And once you go independent, you will need to have money for fuel cost for your trucks as some factories wont pay you for at least 4 weeks. But once you're registered and the process has started, you get paid on a trip by trip or weekly upto 3 weeks basis depending upon the policies of various factories. Make sure you check your trucks from a trusted mechanic before you buy. Different factories will require different tons of trucks. Feel free to ask me anymore questions you did like.

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spotmataz: Good post @op. Doing business is Nigeria is not easy at all for Citizens and Foreigners alike. You have done a really good job of sustaining your biz even despite the difficulties trying to set up and even sustaining the ones you eventually started. It is at that point most aspiring business men give up and pack up. Kudus. Looking forward to learn more from you.

spotmataz -- Thank you! If business was easy I think everybody would succeed. Truth is, its not easy. And the RISK TOLERANCE for various people varies.

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angelo82:



Bravo!Very deep and insightful write up.You have touched so many areas that the so called JIBBS were hiding from prospective investors.Since you have the practical experience in the field of Haulage now,don't you think it will be nice for your company to start taking Trucks from interested people from Nairaland.I will love to go into the business and I mean slowly but I will prefer a very trustworthy company for a start.If you are willing to accept to manage trucks on my behalf you can send me your full contact and I can as well arrange with trustworthy contact in Nigeria to do the follow-up.

Angelo82 -- Thank you! We should first meet up. My MD will be in Lagos soon from Dubai. You should meet our team first. Also at the moment, we are not exactly sure which route to take. Are we going to take local people trucks under us or take foreign venture capitalist money and give them EQUITY in our company or bank loans or independent investors form abroad. As I've mentioned, we are in the process of formulating our business plan mainly to show the banks. I will personally be in Nigeria around Oct or Nov.

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bioye: @ThaiAlNigeria, thank you for the excellent post. This is a great lesson in entrepreneurship and SWOT that we can never learn in a classroom. Also, given the challenges even Nigerians face in the business environment, seeing from the point of view of a foreigner in invaluable. I await your next lecture.

bioye -- Thank you! That was very encouraging! I will mainly try to focus on keeping at Haulage business and maybe the challenges of growing from a 5 trucker to a 10+ trucking business. I believe managing 5 trucks wont be the same as managing 10+ trucks. As we grow, I promise to relay the strategies we've used and where and how we got the money to invest in this business.

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redcliff:

You are absolutely correct. This is very synonymous to nigerian businessmen. They expect to breakeven the very first few months of startup. Which is absolutely not true. More than 90% of world class organizations made losses for more than 3 years after startup. Few nigerian businessmen have the endurance to wait that long.

Redcliff - Thank you! You're absolutely correct! It is mostly not possible to breakeven within 1 year. It takes at least 2-3 years to really start seeing some results. There's simply so much that goes into starting and maintaining a business.

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biopat:

His use of words betrays him. That guy is a Nigerian. He even using words like "abi"

Many guys here C a Thai investor, I c another Remedy4gud (if u know what that guy did to nairalanders). This Thai guys might even b him....the way he uses words n his strategy look alike. Look at his user name self....mtcheww!
Remedy4gud acted like the Messiah, convinced gullible Nigerians n then, scam them.

@All, be careful. When someone makes this kind of effort to give u a free biz idea (n he is not a blogger), u have to think twice.

To my "Thai" brother, I m sorry if I acted to pessimistic... but do u have a website? An office? address.

Biopat -- Thanks for your comment! Yes, we do have a registered company in Nigeria. We have a registered company in Thailand. As we've grown now we will eventually have to pay our taxes. Yes we have a website. http://thai-alpha.com/

It would be very funny if we have been travelling and intimately involved with Business in Nigerian for upto 2 years and not know the meaning of "Abi" "Oga" "Oga pata pata" "Tokunbo trucks". We frequently refer to every employees and our Nigerians managers as Abi. Sometimes they refer to us as Oga. They even refer to us as "bro" Its about the COMPANY CULTURE. How do we want our work environment to be like? I've preferred a "family like approach" business strategy regarding to "companys culture" instead of a "hierarchy like approach". We could meet up if you have any further doubts. You can meet our team and see our trucks. I would also like to mention that my MD has a STR Expatriate Quota visa which will soon be converted to CERPAC (Combined expatriate residence permit and aliens card).

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Part 2
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lari03: Very astute reasoning.
For all the doubters, I think anyone who gets scammed has been set up for failure from the start because this thread has due diligence in market research as one of the strong themes that stand out.
So if anyone is looking for short cuts or is intellectually lazy enough to go into a business without knowledge, then such a person deserves to be scammed.
This is one of the reasons why I am critical of the NDE-SME programs, because they are not structured to meet the needs of our economy, they throw money at meager projects, rather than looking out to mentor and broker the development of industrial enterprises from the scratch.

lari03 -- Mentoring is a very powerful way to empower and encourage a fellow entrepreneur. And its a great program that needs to be encouraged by all companies. Thanks for the idea! I've personally had a wise mentor and I would constantly call him up and ask him what went wrong and how can I proceed. He just gave advises, I did the work. I will discuss a mentoring program with our management team.

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MissMeiya: Love this. ThaiAlNigeria, my father and I experienced many of the same problems you did. I'm learning a lot from this. Thank you for taking the time to detail your experiences. I'm emailing this to my dad.

When I get a chance later, will be back with questions.

MissMeiya -- Thank you very much for the encouragement! It is good to know this thread has helped you in some way. I was thinking to use forums such as these to expose the Jibs for who they really are. That would really encourage fair business. If you are in Lagos, we can connect and meet up. You can meet our MD and our team! I will make special mention of you. Feel free to ask anything you absolutely like!

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emmaihunzeyah: pls my thai bro how much will it cost to have a truck

emmaihunzeyah -- Thanks for your interest! You will find your answer above.

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edogirl2:

Please Op,

1. how did you go from wanting to import rice, a business that requires hundreds of millions of naira, to wanting to import clothes of "$2000 -
$3,000?

2. I've always understood that only people with a special license (waiver?) from the Federal government could import rice through the ports,
though it is possible that this is no longer the case. If a waiver is required, why did this key requirement not feature in your list of
'challenges'

3. Per 1 above, if you had hundreds of millions of Naira to dabble in rice importation, how come you could not afford more than a couple or so 'used' trucks to start your trucking business and fell into the hands of so-called Jibbs

4. What's in it for you to reveal your 'business secrets' - what exactly is your ultimate goal.

Nigerians are fond of putting and often losing their life savings chasing the latest 'hot' business - so please do our people a favour and address the above questions so people can make clear-headed decisions.

Edogirl2 -- Thanks for your comments! I will answer your questions accordingly. 1) You do not need a 100 million nairas to import a few containers of rice to start doing business. Its been almost 2 years but I will try my best to recollect how it works. A ton of white rice from Thailand varies from $450-$1000 per ton depending upon quality of rice. Shipping rates varies from $50-$80 per ton. A 20 foot container can hold around 25 tons of rice. Shipping for 25 tons cost around $1500. Add $12500 for total cost of rice = $14000-$15000 per 20 foot container. You can start with 2 containers that would cost you around $30000. OFFICIAL Import of Nigeria for rice at that time was around 40%-50%. To escape from paying import tax, you need to make connections with the port authorities and pay under-table. This was not something we wanted to do. The powerful women rice traders of Lagos that I mentioned were willing to buy from us if we could get them the price they wanted....which we could not "officially" do. I heard there is a group of 7-8 powerful women that controls alot of the rice into the market.

2) I had mentioned we had to go through Nafdac. Basically to bring rice into Nigeria we had to register our own brand of rice. But before we can do that, we have to register with Nafdac. In fact, alot of people are importing rice into Nigeria via undertable. I do not personally think that the waiver has anything to do with the ability to import rice but actually have to do with HUGE COMPANIES that can import rice WITHOUT PAYING IMPORT TAX. If you are in not in the exempt list, you have to pay your 40%-50% taxes.

3) Answered at 1. We do not have 100 million nairas. I will write in my future post where and how we got the money for our 5 trucks. As a side note, we actually wanted to get into the HOSPITALITY business as we knew that it would be more lucrative than the haulage. But the amount of money needed for that was almost 3-4 times the cost of getting into the Haulage business. We do have future plans to get into the hospitality business. Hopefully within 2-3 years.

4) It is not a secret. But my main intention is to share my haulage business experience in Nairaland. Nairaland has been a source of great information to me in all these years. What I write could be a source of information for future entrepreneurs. And it also encourages Transparency and integrity which we plan to follow through. Imagine exposing the jibs here. Imagine the affect this could have on their business. Future truck owners wouldn't ever register their new trucks under them, if they knew right? Its just a source of info. That's it. I'm just fortunate enough that this thread has been put on the main page. It is a huge honour and a surprise!

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ayodejy05: @OP. Hmmm thailander indeed!!! He's even referring to tokunbo trunk in one of his writings. How come you mentioned tokunbo truck (at least I expected him to write used truck). This is an upgraded scammer in disguise.

ayodejy05 -- Thanks for your comment! As I had mentioned above. It would be extremely funny if we have been in the Haulage business for almost almost 2 years in Nigeria and not know meaning of "Tokunbo" trucks. You learn the lingo. I don't understand how that can come as a surprise.

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360command: Sai wadee ! Why are thai names too long ? Welcome to Nigeria, hope to read more of your stories. This is NaijaSiam connections. From Lagos to Bangkok. Doing business in thai is not also easy. The Farangs in thais complains about doing business in thai. What happens in naija is similarly the same as in thailand.

360command -- Sawadee Khrap! It is good to know that you deal with Thailand! It would be great to meet and connect with you when we are in Lagos!
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I've tried my best to answer everyone's questions and comments to the best of my ability. Although I've only covered the first 2-3 pages of the thread.

Please note it is one thing to write about someones success and business but it is entirely different to actually do it and endure the process.

My Humblest regards,

Your Friend.

Wow, OP. You're a good person. I can't believe you're actually responding to everyone and being this helpful. *amazed*

MissMeiya:

Seriously. You would expect to see comments about business, doing business in Nigeria, people's experiences, and so on. But this is Nairaland now.

You can say that again. Was hoping to pick up much more, seeing it's in line with stuff I do. All the excitement died down when I saw it on the front page. *shrug*

ThaiAlNigeria: MissMeiya -- Thank you very much for the encouragement! It is good to know this thread has helped you in some way. I was thinking to use forums such as these to expose the Jibs for who they really are. That would really encourage fair business. If you are in Lagos, we can connect and meet up. You can meet our MD and our team! I will make special mention of you. Feel free to ask anything you absolutely like!

My father's business is in Cross River. Agriculture. He and I won't be near Lagos for a long time. But I'd love to keep reading about your experiences and share them with my dad. We will definitely be on the lookout for our own Jibs I suspect we've had one or two already in the past, but we take it for granted as part and parcel of doing business in Nigeria. If I remember the specific cases, I will contribute my own story

Thanks for sharing. And thanks for coming back.

As an undergraduate and potential entrepreneur, I was shocked at the plainness of this poster, I'm impressed and I see you making it very very big with this attitude, very few people will give that volume of information free of charge. To skeptics, I believe you have every right to be skeptical about anything, but with the trend of things in the world presently, whenever you are presented with any opportunity or chance, regardless of its status; true or false, seek to validate people's claim before you castigate their personalities or claims. And @missmeiya, I understand you have related with different people on nairaland and you have become so reactive and fast to "hit" people but as an entrepreneur that might not help you to go far as you desire because communications management is a very critical aspect to becoming a renowned, life-impacting and economy impacting entrepreneur. Look forward to learning more from this poster.

thanks so far ThaiAlNigeria we can actually meet whenever you are in Nigeria. Your message is a message of progress...actually Not all Nigerians can dish out all these information without money issue attached to it right away, most time the present the ill informed thoughts and research as e-book which they actually want to make money from. So, that's the reason why a lot of them here are getting 'confused' and not 'smart' already.
my email address is browmbest@gmail.com let me know which way you think best for us to reach each other. Thanks once more

Joelaking: And @missmeiya, I understand you have related with different people on nairaland and you have become so reactive and fast to "hit" people but as an entrepreneur that might not help you to go far as you desire because communications management is a very critical aspect to becoming a renowned, life-impacting and economy impacting entrepreneur

No clue what you mean. I don't encounter stúpidity this blatant in my working life. And if I did, obviously I wouldn't say anything. Networking is one of my best business skills, which my father makes excessive use of.

And... what on earth does calling out stúpid people on the internet have to do with communication management? You better learn what those big words mean before throwing them around. Because people who know what they mean will not take you seriously if you don't.

@ThaiAlNigeria.
Sent you an email(the temporary gmail), it bounced..... might be my email client though, so I'm gonna paste it here.

You mentioned getting the right brand of trucks. What brand does your firm use? Are you referring to boxed trucks, flat bed or dump trucks?
If dump, which is better? I know M.A.N diesel consumes more diesel than Mack, but it seems Macks are cheaper than all or most, but more expensive in the long run.
Did you start with fairly used trucks or brand new trucks?


Regards,

S.C

NOW I CAN SEE WHY MAJORITY OF NIGERIAN YOUTHS ARE NOT LIKELY TO HAVE A BREAKTHROUGH.

I patiently read the posters thread and within the lines I could categorically tell that the OP wanted to genuinely tell Nigerians the gold mine in the Haulage business. But because he wasn't here to sell them "eBooks" as usual. The ignorant childish and brainless kids derailed this thread and tried to talk people out of the posters advice.

I started 2 main entrepreneur threads (still up till now) here some years back on helping young entrepreneurs grow, but when the kids started creeping in, I abandoned the thread.

Its one thing to device fraud, its another Thing to avoid it.

Life is all about knowledge (learning), risk taking, and gathering experience.

People expect to pass through business and life with wanting to go through the above.

For those who have succeeded in making a mockery of this thread I say shame on you.


For those who read the thread diligently and have the money to invest I say good luck.

For the Poster I say nice job. You had a honest heart to help but because Nigerians (majority) prefer criminals to honest people (that account for why they keep voting in dubious politicians) I will tell you that keep doing you bit to help humanity.

Peace!

MissMeiya:


And... what on earth does calling out stúpid people on the internet have to do with communication management? You better learn what those big words mean before throwing them around.

Just exactly what I was saying, the way this sentence was presented could be annoying to the common man, but its fine with me, I know wht I'm saying no matter how clueless I might look. Peace!!

Joelaking: Just exactly what I was saying, the way this sentence was presented could be annoying to the common man, but its fine with me, I know wht I'm saying no matter how clueless I might look. Peace!!

... What?

Ironic, given that we are discussing communication.

@ThaiALnigeria. Did u learn how to write/speak english in Nigeria or in thailand? U write well!

Phame: @ThaiALnigeria. Did u learn how to write/speak english in Nigeria or in thailand? U write well!

I have met Chinese and Russians who speak and write more fluently than most of our Nigerian graduates.

Just the same way some people speak more fluently the dialect of another man who comes from the original region (I.e ibo man speaking far better Yoruba than a Yoruba man).

acidtalk:


I have met Chinese and Russians who speak and write more fluently than most of our Nigerian graduates.

Just the same way some people speak more fluently the dialect of another man who comes from the original region (I.e ibo man speaking far better Yoruba than a Yoruba man).

that's wonderful!
The thai guy impressed me.

This was how Nairaland was informative years back, and it will always be due to good info like this...

But lately people tend to sell every little thing they know thru ebooks and so on..

I would say I had been a avid reader of article like this since I joined Nairaland in 2008.

So @ OP keep up the good work.. U have really enlightened my knowledge on haulage business in Nigeria from the little I had know before..

God bless you...

jdilight:

If you understand what she was trying to explain you wouldn't be asking this question. That is the best economic law so far if well implemented.

Have you ever heard of the law of unintended consequences? That's what that situation looks like to me.

@ thainaija, I have been following ur write up all day , I must say this, kudos to you. I am also going through what you went through, I am an African American starting a business in nigeria, it's very rough, anyway here is my email info@kiraintl.com, let see how we can share books, once again, thanks

ThaiAlNigeria: Greetings Nairalanders,

Looking forward to be a valuable contributor in these forums.

I'm from Bangkok Thailand and our company has been doing business in Nigeria for almost 2 years.

We have a registered company in Nigeria as well as in Bangkok and Dubai.

My elder brother saw an opportunity in Nigeria and made up his mind that Nigeria indeed has a great many opportunities.

Needless to say, actually implementing the idea was not an easy task.

We faced so many great hurdles to make it here that we almost closed down our business at the end of first year for reasons I will further explain soon.

I will separate my post into 2 phases.

1) Our first & second business idea and how that failed (Rice, Clothing and imports)
2) our third business idea and how we made it. (Haulage)

I will start with the first phase

Our first business idea was importing Rice into Nigeria. Seeing that I am from Thailand and Nigerians love Thai rice it sounded like a valid business plan. So we went around Lagos searching for buyers. We came across several powerful women that trades in Rice. We saw these huge warehouses full of rice and many container of rice being offloaded into the warehouses. They were willing and enthusiastic to work with us if we could get them their price. Daily rice prices are fixed. So we made a connection with these powerful women.

Now our next goal was to find the rice at the right prices here in Thailand. But it does not end there. We had to register our rice with Nafdac (Nigerian agency for food and drug). And going to the process of Nafdac is amazingly time consuming and expensive. We hired a lawyer to help us speed the process.

We had also known that the import taxes on rice into Nigeria is 40%. Now here was the issue. We tried finding a source of rice at the right prices here in Thailand but it was not possible. The reason it was not possible was because the import taxes were too high and there was no way we could have made any money selling to the Nigerian Market. We wondered how did other people do it? We investigated. We went to the port and made some connections with some people there and found out that rice importers were not paying import taxes. They were paying money under-table. It is an acceptable practice. But we understood it was against the law and decided to drop the idea of importing rice as wanted to wholly abide by the country laws 100%. We could have made money with the right connections but decided not to go this route.

That is failure of our first business plan.

Our second business plan basically involved importing clothes worth around $2000-$4000. But we failed to sell enough in the market. Due to competition and lack of market research we failed.

After this we decided to try to import various stuff into Nigeria like Air conditioners and electronics. But we realized that the prices the buyers were asking were too low compared to what the factories were selling it for. Plus due to heavy competition, complexity in import/export process and direct easy access to factories itself via alibaba and websites; we as middlemen importers were not needed and even if we were our profit margins would be very little.

So we kissed our import dreams goodbye as well.

Almost 1 year in Nigeria had passed.

If there is one thing we learnt.....doing business in Nigeria was NOT easy.

If you are interested, I will next write the second phase of our story later and tell you how & why we succeeded and the extreme difficulties (To the point where we were about to lose most of our fortunes) we faced before we succeeded in our next venture. (Haulage)

My humblest regards.

Your Friend.

As an igbo man there are secrets to business just stay away from that angle...that's or turf so you can play

Rule...try understand the market before you enter

tonychristopher:
As an igbo man there are secrets to business just stay away from that angle...that's or turf so you can play

Rule...try understand the market before you enter

Nonsense post.

MissMeiya:

Honestly. Me, who has never spent up to a full year in Nigeria combined, even I can speak pidgin English decently enough. But someone who actually works in Nigeria isn't supposed to know the word "abi"? *eyeroll*

even if he is a 'scammer' , his post is highly educative and informative. thank you jare.

Pavore9: Following....but the English and flow sounds Nigerian!

Brother I smell 419....walking