@ klassyguy

I will try and take my time in addressing as many questions as I can.

First of, a lot of things will be entirely dependent on how you/friend envision your auto-importing business (i.e. the tastes of your customers; your location (i.e. abuja, no ports, vehicles would have to be conveyed to abuja, from lagos port, if to be sold in Abuja; your approach to sales/selling (i.e. do you want to have vehicles imported prior to having potential buyers - storage costs, etc; or do you desire having somewhat committed customers prior to searching for and importing the car specs the customers have requested - little to no storage costs, quick turnover of cars held, etc - note: most sellers I know in Lagos do the former, but some others engage in the latter 'system/method') As you mentioned that the friend has 5 customers I thought to mention the latter method as a viable option - but note that it is harder to conduct with the environment in Nigeria (you could have someone commit and still back out of the contract). A ton of these you'd most likely have a better idea of when you examine what auto-importers around you are doing, making inquiries of them and matching with your specific situation/preferences.
Other things of note would include where you'd be sourcing (this is key) the vehicles from (i.e. locally, or globally). Once some of the business direction has been 'ironed-out' a response to you question would probably be as follows:

"can you give me a low-down of the things needed in order to start" - (a) reputable source/sourcing of vehicles to be sold; (b) costs associated with storage of vehicles (if and when needed); (c) costs associated with conveying vehicles from port(s) to Abuja; (d) capital - highly depends on what you want to do (e.g. one (sourcing from the USA) could start off with one car, say a 1999-2001 toyota camry and invest N750K to N1.1m (includes shipping and clearing) (yes a wide range/disparity, but would be driven by year, mileage, condition of car, trim of car, salvage title or not salvaged (yep, a lot of cars in Nigeria are salvaged) options included (all aforementioned are sourcing related), shipping method used, competency of clearing agent would drive clearing costs, etc); on the other hand, one could start off with 3 (three) 2006 mercedes benz c-classes for example and invest between N9m to N11m. (we have a situation where one car clears for about N200k and the other about N550k - see, it all depends on what you guys want to do). Unfortunately I can't provide an idea of costs for (a), (b) and (c) as I never deal with these when I ship cars.

"The advantages and disadvantages" adv - it is a good, but involved, business; car dealers in Nigeria are notorious for making around 80%-100% margins on higher-end cars (benzes, hummers, etc) so there is money to be made - but you probably already know that. disadvantage - it can be a friggin hassle, (customer backouts, car tie-downs, etc).

"agent fees" - Personally, i have only worked with a fellow who works at the lagos port and happens to be a tenant in my Mother's house - so I've really not dealt with agent fees, besides clearing costs - but I do 'settle' him for his help from time to time.

I may have caused you more questions than answers, but like I mentioned earlier on, make inquiries of people who are in the business, know what you wnat to do/see yourself doing in the business and go from there. The costs I quoted were from my experience using USD against Naira (N120 exchange rate).

Oh yes, it does not hurt to have good people around you too.

Good luck.


PS - Please help me here: the End of Discussion is the Honda Accord right?

Sir Qweird:



PS - Please help me here: the End of Discussion is the Honda Accord right?

Yep! The the End of Discussion is THE HONDA ACCORD FROM 2003 TILL 2007.
Funnily, Nigeria has a knack for naming Honda Accords of every model.
I wonder what they'll call the new Honda Accord 2008.

PapaBrowne:

Yep! The the End of Discussion is THE HONDA ACCORD FROM 2003 TILL 2007.
Funnily, Nigeria has a knack for naming Honda Accords of every model.

i hate it when people do this type of naming, bloody bleepers

W

ricki:

i hate it when people do this type of naming, bloody bleepers

Whats there 2 hate man? Me thinks its cool yet senseless at the same time.

Hope your uncle knows not to buy lemons.

sultaan:

Hope your uncle knows not to buy lemons.

And V6 Sedans too. V6 cars don't sell well in Nigeria especially for Honda. Except it is a truck or high end auto. Sir Qwierd said it all.Best of luck and shine your eyes well well. The good thing is that you are based in Naija so you won't experience the trouble of dealing with Nigerian car dealers,strikers,mechanics,drivers and those who makes more than the car owner in the quest of 'for seeing' and 'for hearing'[i][/i]