EKONG JOHN AKWA
For those who are interested in going into yam trading business but need training or technical know-how, I will tell you that it is not a thing you can learn everything online. You have to be physically ready to go places that are trading yams, ask questions, do some research, preferably let someone who is already in it lead you by the hand, then you start small for the first time and be involved in the entire process.
- When you hear people talk about the business online everything seems so easy and you start to feel like a boss thinking you will just do it without any itch. But I’m here to tell you that its not as easy as you think it is, if you are not on the field you can know the dynamics and if you want to entrust it into people’s hands, you might get duped, also you might be lucky to meet with loyal people but if you don’t know something you will definitely think they are cheating you.
- There are market men and women who are ready to give information to you whenever you talk to them about your interest in a particular business, there is no agro product that you want to sell that doesn’t already have people trading it, dedicate days and weeks into meeting with them, let them hold you by the hand and show you how it’s done, don’t because of excitement and availability of money run to the market to purchase any products thinking you will just sell them off.
- If you don’t have the market for it please do not do it. What is the essence of buying goods that you don’t have a market for? Every business has tricks, learn them first before investing your money into it.
- One of the biggest tasks in the Agro commodity trade is the sourcing aspect, you have to bargain with tens and hundreds of people just to arrive at a very good price before any purchase can take place.
These folks know how to call big prices but you have to know how to beat it down as well, everybody gets his/her own ministry and part of your own should be to beat down prices. Practically, it might not be easy but when you have mastered the market you won’t have any problem at all.
- When you are buying yam for distribution/resell, you must be strategic with your calculations, the cost price of the yam per heap is different from the total landing cost.
Landing cost consists of product cost, marking fee, loading fee, market tax, logistics fee and some other miscellaneous. When you put all these together, you must be sure that you have a very tangible profit on it at the end of the day.
