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Chike Nwafor (not his actual identify), sells books for a residing – principally second-hand books. He travels from place to put to make his gross sales. His purchasers are e book lovers throughout Nigeria, therefore, he finds himself shuttling completely different areas; workplaces, properties, colleges, and public locations, to prospect consumers.
Chike, who has been within the enterprise for over 5 years, says he has turn out to be accustomed to touring to completely different locations to fulfill his clients who principally get pleasure from inspirational books, profession growth books, and thrillers. When he isn’t touring, he’s at his stand in a nook of Ojuelegba market.
His targets are as assorted because the atypical man on the streets, college students in colleges, staff of their workplaces, and everybody he perceives desires “a greater life”. Therefore, wherever he finds himself – on a public bus, at gatherings, colleges, and so forth. – he advertises to anybody who’s keen to provide him an ear.
The enterprise is a win-win for Chike, who just isn’t solely altering individuals’s lives by serving to them get impressed with books, however he additionally earns a “affordable sum” on the finish of the month. Each month, he is ready to take residence not less than N150,000 after deducting his touring bills in the midst of working the enterprise.
“The least cash I make in a day is N5,000, however on days when the market strikes, I promote as much as N10,000 or greater than that,” he instructed Nairametrics.
Beginning the enterprise
Chike has all the time beloved studying books at the same time as a baby; it was this ardour for studying books that led him to this enterprise path.
“I’m a bibliophile. I get pleasure from shopping for and studying books quite a bit and I used to purchase a whole lot of books. At one level, the books grew to become an excessive amount of so I made a decision to promote some out” he mentioned, explaining how he received began within the enterprise.
After promoting his extra books, he got here to a sudden realization that he may make a good residing from the commerce. Since then, he has not regarded again.
The challenges
In the meantime, working the enterprise hasn’t been with out challenges. In line with Chike, essentially the most difficult occasions for him are throughout wet seasons. Throughout this era, he isn’t in a position to journey round as a result of his wares are very delicate and get ruined after they get in touch with a single drop of water.
As well as, he famous that issues are not the way in which they was once as a result of curiosity in bodily books has declined over time because of the supply of PDF and doc recordsdata on cellular gadgets.
“Issues are quick altering. The brand new technology doesn’t need to hold bodily books at residence. They like to learn their books in mushy copies,” he mentioned, including that social media has made lots of people lazy to learn.
He additionally raised the difficulty with native authorities and market union individuals who acquire day by day charges and levies from him and different merchants available in the market.
His enterprise stays within the casual sector as a result of the levies paid hardly get to the federal government’s coffers. The Affiliation of e book peddlers is nothing greater than a social membership because it by no means does something to advance or mainstream its enterprise or professionalizes its actions.
The key ingredient to promoting quick
With the appearance of expertise, a whole lot of companies have been in a position to outline their function by leveraging tendencies. For Chike, technological development and social media have certainly been a blessing that has been serving to to spice up gross sales.
He defined that he’s in a position to hold most of his clients by sharing new shares with them through social media. This technique has labored each in buyer acquisition and retention.
One other key ingredient that helps him promote quick is getting to know the merchandise he’s coping with as a result of in response to him, “you can not promote what you don’t perceive.”
Which means he has to conduct in depth analysis into some authors, the themes that dominate their books, and what impressed them to write down what they write. This permits him to arrange killer pitches that his clients discover arduous to withstand.
Over time, he has constructed his choices and gross sales portfolio round African authors with ‘grass to grace’ tales, he says. These tales function ample motivation, particularly for college kids, who dream of rising past their present states to attain big-time successes.
It’s a confirmed technique, he affirms.
His future plans for the enterprise
Wanting ahead, Chike plans to personal a really massive bookshop the place he can promote books to distributors who in flip will distribute to e book lovers throughout completely different states. This fashion, he believes he would be capable to make constructive adjustments in additional lives.
“I consider these little issues would assist to make the world a greater place,” he mentioned.
Who can enterprise into the enterprise?
Chike has demonstrated that anybody could make a good residing from promoting books; it doesn’t essentially require hundreds of thousands of naira to arrange. He began with ‘nothing’ by promoting a few of his used books.
He defined that a lot of the books he sells are imported, which he buys in cartons as they’re shipped to Nigeria from overseas. “A lot of the books I promote are international books from America, Canada, and others. Now we have those that collect these books and ship them all the way down to Nigeria. Once they arrive in Nigeria, we (e book distributors) are referred to as to come back and purchase.”
He added that not all these books are used, as a few of them are pushed out of the shop by publishers when new shares arrive in order that the brand new ones can keep.
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