I have always had a good eye for identifying investing opportunities in Zimbabwe. It was mainly the issues to do with capital that would stifle me but the ideas would come. Some ideas wouldn’t resonate well with my nature and I would simply shelf them were they would die a miserable death or until another enlightened entrepreneur HAD BRAINSTORMED. This time around it’s just a share away. I have learnt that there is enough for everyone in this universe and that a candle loses nothing by lighting another candle. Sharing is caring.
Iam not a professional motivational speaker and I would like to save you from my boring speech and get to the cases. I would like to show you how you can make money in festive seasons and how my little brother took advantage of a trade that you already know and how I intend to duplicate his success this Christmas. Two weeks before Christmas, my little brother Norbert asked me for a $US50 note. He told me that he would pay me back on Christmas day without fail. I asked him what he wanted to do with it and he just laughed it off. I handed him the note wondering what this 16 year old boy had under his sleeves and waited.
The next day he was off to Mutare for Christmas and I week later I followed. I was working on three websites for upcoming bloggers so I spend most of my time at home. I marveled at his business model. The young man had a sign right at the corner of the street and another at the house simply saying fireworks for Christmas. I chuckled when I first saw it but humbled when I saw the demand which he somehow failed to meet. He ran out of the fireworks two days before New Year’s Eve. I stepped in immediately and called a friend who bought more for him and put them on a bus to Mutare. He was in business again. In the end I got my $50.00 back plus a $20.00 return. I didn’t ask him what he made himself but I proposed to help him restructure his festive business venture this year.
How to leverage from Festive Holidays and outshine big corporations in Zimbabwe
In Zimbabwe, festive seasons are associated with a lot of traffic. Traffic in business is defined as the people who pass by your business premises and if you are not careful, during festive seasons all they will ever do is pass by. You will need to convert and the process of converting traffic to cash or to a customer is what makes businesses successful. I have agreed with Norbert that we only focus on Christmas this year. Nothing more nothing less! We are going to ignore the business opportunities on Easter, Heroes Day just to mention a few. We discovered that by doing that we will definitely outshine big corporations. The big firms cannot afford to only focus on Christmas or Easter holiday only, but for a small company and an individual who wants to raise capital for a bigger project, this will work.
Changing his game plan
Last year, what Norbert only did was to go around Harare window shopping for the best price. This year Iam changing that a little. He knows the best firecrackers people need and I know how to get them cheaper than last year. From the wholesalers’ wholesaler! From January till now, I have been googling wholesale Manufactures of fireworks. I have seen interesting prices from China, India and South Africa. We will be doing our research at a snail’s pace until June then start buying in July. We are planning to be fully stocked by October. I have seen a site online which has a 40% discount on firecrackers bought early in the year. Some manufactures have prices of less than $15.00 per carton but their minimum order will be either 250 cartons or 1000 cartons.
Why I share these ideas
Most people ask me why I set up this blog and why I share all these ideas for free. One of my extended mentors told me that there is enough for everyone and also that before I receive anything, I have to give. If I could give you money, that wouldn’t be enough. It would be a meaningless fraction of a dollar. Besides, I get paid on the advertisements that you see on this blog and the offline consulting my team and I do. I have helped people with brilliant ideas meet up with Green Investors and whilst for others it was a matter of pointing them to the right door.
Group buys
What I then realized is if you need 5 different types of firecrackers, then you are going to need to buy 100 cartons of each. The final figure may be restrictive. Last night I was thinking of a way out and I found one at an unlikely place, a software forum. As I have said before, the internet will render a lot of finance and economics theories irrelevant. A share can save you more money than it used to do before. What people do nowadays is they google a software or an online training course say at a price of $500.00. The person who discovers the software needs it so badly but can’t pay that much. He goes onto the forum and look for people whose needs will be solved by purchasing the software. When all the people are gathered on the forum, they divide the price of the software amongst themselves which sometimes come down to $20.00. They each add an extra say $5.00 per person as handling fee for processing the purchase. Because all these people do not know each other enough to create trust mainly because they only met on the forum, they cannot do the transaction on their own. They will have to send their $25.00 each to the site administrator. He then buys the software on their behalf and sends the key to each of them or he downloads the training course and share the download link or rapidgator or other upload sites.
Duplicating the same concept
I have been doing a research on how many people end up not buying a certain item because of that. So I would like to test the concept with my followers of this blogs. If you have any item you wanted to buy but couldn’t because of price, email me and let’s start group buys. But for a start, those who want to assist my little brother in launching his firecrackers business in December and would like to participate in the group buy, email me. Like I told you, there is enough for everyone. Let’s share ideas and watch our bank accounts fattening. If you have a business idea or a success story you want to share to Zimbabweans and the rest of the world, email me.
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