₦airaland Forum

When there is little or o capital

Reputation is key, especially on this platform as much as people want to see what you are selling physically before they make financial commitment some also leverage on how popular and trustworthy they are on this platform (Nairaland). This brings me to the topic of selling even before your item arrive. On this forum especially in the tech market page, people use terms like AIN ( Already in Nigeria) for items that they already bought, have picked up and shipped to them in Nigeria. Another popular term is TLC (Total landing cost) seller posting this already sourced a profitable item and are committing buyers money to do business. Like I said trust is key and how reputable you are. So if you do no lot have huge capital to start you can do TLC and use Escrow services. Escrow will hold all or part of the money till the buyer gets his product.

Nonso92:
DrOladipo I am really enjoying your thread. I hope I find the courage to act on the information that I eventually come across here.

Amazing thread. With this information, one could easily start a side hustle and at some point turn into a main hustle.

Bless you OP.

I still don't have marketplace on my Facebook, I followed the link posted on page 3, but nothing. Anyways, I have a phone number verified OfferUp account, but like you said, it's filled with resellers and lots of scammers selling 100x below market value and offering just 12$ for shipping of item. I already know it's a scam.

Still looking for an amazing deal on the platform though, but I'll check out other platforms as well.

Thank you so much!

Alabaintprice:
My offer up can easily login with my Facebook..... I only signed up by connecting my Facebook to it

Thank you for the update. Did you try to chat some sellers up?

Backmarket

This is a goldmine!!! They hold the largest inventory for refurbished items in the USA. Most prominent and reputable sellers I have met on eBay and Amazon use this platform too. Deals are crispy and cheap on backmarket for electronic gadgets. The prices are way lower than what’s obtainable on other platforms. I know people will ask the question of how we an bridge the gab between these ecom platforms and getting their goods delivered in Nigeria. We are always available, get a copy of the ebook.

Backmarket is a tech startup with huge financial backing, their selling point is being environmentally conscious as most of the refurbished items get back into the market thereby reducing plastic waste. Refurbished items are as good as new items in some cases.

I have been introducing platforms we can use to source cheap and profitable deals. It will be interesting to get people to try things out so as to keep us motivated. We have dealt on eBay, Facebook marketplace and some others.

The subject of getting your items fast through efficient airfreight will be discussed. I have direct affiliation with a service that get shipment delivered between 7 to 10 business days from the USA, sometimes it’s earlier than that. The perk is custom clearance is handled through this service.

G12:
Op, are you going to cover how to sign up on Offerup? That would be nice.

Surely. Offerup however needs extra bypass. By this I mean use of USA phone number for verification. There are people even on this forum doing this for a very cheap price.

LEGITDATAPLUG:
I've signed up but haven't gotten any mail

Check your mail.

So for the above you are buying 10pcs for $369 and that comes to 37$ unit.

Someone should search for Samsung Chromebook XE303C12 11.6" Exynos 5 1.7Ghz 2GB RAM 16GB SSD on jiji or Nairaland to get an idea of the average unit selling price in Nigeria.

Like I posited this thread will add value to every follower. Just keep following.

Using eBay to source and search Cheap deals

Ebay is mega powerful. Most sellers on ebay have huge inventory of items in fact some at checkout page give options of buying bulk quantities. The deal with eBay is to filter and search for items that are cheap. Most buyers offer free shipping within the USA. The maximum number of days item take to arrive is 5 in most cases. I do something powerful with ebay, I search for gadgets lots and read the description well. Sometimes items may be missing certain parts or components. All I do in this case is to ask my computer or phone technician how much it will cost to fix the item. This is added to my cost and when I do my market research and see there is decent profit to be made… I purchase.

You can see the price quoted for the phone above. That is a red flag for phone of that model and configuration. You already see a prospective buyer labeling it as scam. Just like every other business, we must ensure we stay away from greed. A fair market price is what you need to go with.

Recent Questions I got privately but will address here.

1. Seller not agreeing to meet at a public place.
Well, I believe that 90% of people interested in doing this are in Nigeria and will definitely be using pickup services of folks in the USA. In most cases sellers prefer to meet in a public place like a bank environment, eateries or on the street. Just like we have some ‘dangerous’ areas in Nigeria the same is true with certain communities in the west too. So I will reemphasize checking to make sure the item is not underpriced, that’s a big red flag!

MirthOsas:
How do I get this?

Check signature

micellgevity:
With this, does it mean we can buy from the sellers on FB and list the products on Amazon, eBay, etc?

I am trying to get your question. The concept we are dealing with is importation to Nigeria. What you described sounds like dropshipping. You are essentially looking for cheap items on deal and discount or selling cheaply and buying to import to Nigeria and resell.

Soleye24:
How do I get it please?

Check your mail

You’re welcome!

Tenshades:
I havent got the guide oooo...

But i registered on your site some days ago.

Chai, i don miss.

Check the welcome message in your email

After getting idea of how much the product sells in Nigeria we then begin our search on the platforms I have mentioned before.

Go to the aforementioned platforms in USA, narrow your search to a city e.g Chicago and search of the same item. You will see hundreds of listing. The power with big cities is the population factor. The varieties of items you will get in Chicago city will definitely be more than the one of Aurora both in the state of Illinois. So leverage on the population of the big cities to get good deals.

Go with at least 5 sellers.

The rules are to message in the day time. Like I said, most of these folks are not posting for business. They probably just want to get rid of items they have no use for anymore. A polite message is key to getting good and fast response. Fortunately most of the selling platforms have already generated messages to initiate your chat. ‘Is the item available , ‘ I want to buy your item’
After you get a response then you continue in your language.

Have we all got the Concise Guide on the subject?

Tenshades:
Glad to have you back, boss!

Thank you!

So not just stop on Nairaland, jiji is the biggest classified marketplace in Nigeria. Go on jiji and do the same, you can alter the search filter to get more precise results based on the configuration of items you want to sell.

Still on selling

The pragmatic approach to determine what is in for you before you decide importing any product is to first do your local market survey and research. This will give you an idea of what your cost will be and profit. Nairaland is a very good platform to do this also. Let me itemize the steps;

1. Visit Nairaland.com and and type in the item in the search bar

2. When you click submit a search query will return, the good thing about Nairaland “algorithm” is that it brings the most recent relevant result. You you will get the actual current price people are selling this item.

Just to keep us going… this is

I have received many PMs from people who are very knowledgeable about items that are not electronic gadgets. This thread applies to all items. The system will apply to all ‘importable’ items.

Some already have ideas about importation and are fully focused on fashion items. The rules are the same… buying cheaply to maximize profit. This thread will never die… my goal is to ensure that at least a 100 people are actively doing this and making profit. Also successes would be shared to encourage others.

For items other than gadgets there are ways to locate and search for them. I have bought a Kenneth Cole watch for half its price in a specific store. It’s all about searching. I will introduce websites to buy cheaply and how to ship fast too will be discussed earnestly.

Are there still people having issue assessing Facebook Marketplace in USA? Let’s solve this and proceed.

ITEMS TO SELL
The rule of the thumb is to have at least an intermediate idea of what you will be selling. For those that will be going for phones… understanding how to check for the phone status is important. You don’t want to get an item that will not be fit for the Nigeria market. In the west, most people purchase phones on contract and they are locked to that network until the buyer pays off the debt. So buying a locked phone can be a big problem but there are folks that offer unlocking services.

You must understand the configuration and specification of your item. Selling price is solely dependent on these. A higher RAM phone with more storage will sell higher than lower ones. Understanding the dynamics of the market is important.

As we all know people see Apple products as fanciful and luxurious, often times other brands with higher specifications don’t even sell as fast as apple merch will. Apple has positioned itself as a frontier in innovation hence they have a very large market share in North America. So each time newer items are released the old become ‘stale’.

Samsung is not doing badly too, they are in direct competition with apple so they don’t want to be left far behind. These two brands are hot cakes.

Accessories like smart watches and other wearable devices are also selling fast in Nigeria.

I am a lover of data. Take a look at the screenshot to see how popular these two brands are. That is where the money is!

I am back. Massive updates to follow. Got 72 hrs ban.

The King is back….

Welcome back Legend…. Joy to watch…Liverpool fan!

G12:
Wow! Really cool. I'm exploring Facebook Marketplace right now after reading through the posts here.

So I messaged some sellers to test the waters, most of them said they only accept Cash App. Any way around this?

Please, proceed.

Due diligence is very important. There are conmen everywhere. Helping people pick, I do cash only deals and meeting at public places. You cannot even pay from Nigeria directly unless your item is less than $100 (CBN restrictions) unless you use a dollar domiciled card.

So things to watch out for
- Check the price of the item and compare with related items. Too low price is a signal for scam.

- Seller offers to ship to you after you pay via Zelle or cashapp.

Importing cheaply sourced gadgets from USA is a source of unending wealth. We are navigating beating the forex restriction and getting deals at amazing prices with swift shipping. We have a thread addressing this on this forum: You can request more info through my signature.

https://www.nairaland.com/6710206/thread-benefit-usa-dirt-cheap