Practical Guide On How To Start A Profitable Transport Business In Nigeria
The transport industry is one of those ever enduring industries. There is really no bad period for transport businessmen except the one necessitated by bad management. People must travel from place to place as it is essential for their survival irrespective of the status of the economy. This is why you should start a profitable transport business.
The transport business is the business that involves the movement of people, animals, and goods of all kinds from one place to another. It can come in various forms and they include cars, planes, helicopters, ships, buses, trucks, boats, and trains.
Well, the choice actually is yours. If you have the guts and you think you can dare to dry, then this piece can be very useful for you. It may not give you everything but it will tell you how to handle everything related to starting the business.
You can look at our population and you will understand why you start a profitable transport business in Nigeria. You can look at the men in the transport company who have etched their names in the industry and you will understand the profitability of the industry.
Related: A practical guide on how to start a profitable honey production business in Nigeria
Basically, the transport industry provides you with the opportunity to be involved in vehicle hiring services, hire purchase venture, personal driving services, and owning your transport line. This does not mean that there are no other opportunities in this sector because there are.
In this piece, we shall provide you with various opportunities you can find in the transport business so as to whet your appetite and then we will proceed with the guide on how you can start a profitable transport business in Nigeria. If at this stage you have no desire to start the business, you can just stop except you are reading for the sake of knowledge. Other than that, you can continue and you will be richly rewarded.
Business Opportunities In The Transport Business
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Bus Transport Business
In Nigeria, the bus transport business is a very huge profitable venture. It is about having skilled drivers who take people from one place to another. It could be inter-city or intra-city transportation. It could also transport goods. You can be the driver for the starting point until you can get people and more buses running for you.
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Car Rental Services
If you are not driving people yourself, you can offer cars that will be rented. Car rental services offer you a veritable and viable opportunity to make money. It is best suited for people in the urban areas. People in major cities in Nigeria use rented cars for purpose or the other. There is no doubt that you will have to start with a huge capital outlay but you can rest easy knowing the returns will be massive.
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Moving van transport venture
The fact that the day to day activities of people in Nigeria require them to move goods from one location to another provides us with another opportunity in the transport business. It is one of the reasons you can actually start a profitable transport business in the country.
What is required is get vans that can transport items and then get people that will load and unload the goods to and fro. It could be capital intensive and it could be started on a low key basis and built to a greater standard. There is no question about customers as this is in demand.
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Taxi/Taxicab Business
One of the opportunities in the transport business is the Taxicab business. This venture involves getting licenses that enable a single driver or taxi company to handle the transportation of people from one place to another. In a typical taxi situation, it is usually non-shared. It is just for one rider at a time. This is no longer the case as cab sharing is becoming very popular.
It has even become technologically based and people can just go online and order cabs and will get them waiting for them at the time they want or specified. In Nigeria, Uber and Taxify work very well. You can start something like that or you keep it low key until you can expand.
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Air Transportation
If you want to start a profitable transport business, you can actually invest in the air transport business. Air transportation can be used for both humans and cargoes. It is quite profitable. You could join airplane refueling, airport shuttling, airplane maintenance services and airplane cleaning. Having a company in charge of any of these can make your pocket smile always.
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Livestock Transport
You can become an expert in livestock transport and make a lot of money. It is about providing livestock owners with the needed vehicles (safe and spacious) to move their animals from one location to another.
Other business opportunities available to you if you decide to start a profitable transportation business are truck/courier transport business, marine shipping, specialty transport business, medical transportation and others.
Without wasting much of your time, we will go to the main thing. I know you are already becoming impatient but it was necessary to walk you through the opportunities so as to mentally prepare for you the tasks ahead. Do not despair, we are here already.
How To Start A Profitable Transport Business In Nigeria
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Research the business
As with other businesses, the first you will do when you want to start a profitable transport business is to go into serious research or feasibility study. It will open up your eyes to what is possible and what is not. You will find out the locations that best for the exact sector of the transport business that you want to embark on and you will be able to make informed decisions on the capital you will need and potential profit.
Having taken out time to carry out a feasibility study, you can proceed to get your business plan prepared. The business plan will take into consideration many aspects of the business so you need to do that well. The cash flow will be considered, the sources of startup capital, the investors (if needed), the exit strategy, the opportunities and threats and a lot of other things.
Get your business together and your business is a step away from becoming a reality.
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Capital
It is no news that even the business that is very low capital intensive will still require capital. Most of the opportunities discussed above are high capital intensive ventures but that should not discourage you. It is not all of them that are like that.
You will need to look at the capital you can raise and the one that the capital can handle. Besides, you can always start small and scale up with time.
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Register your business
Your business will lack legality if it is not registered with the appropriate authorities. Therefore, when you start a profitable transport business in Nigeria, you need to visit the appropriate authorities to get it registered. It is mandatory that you register with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC).
More so, you can register with other licensing bodies and you will be covered to do business in Nigeria.
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Join a union
Everything in the country now thrives on unionism. There is no sector that this is more pronounced than the transport company. Trust me, it is a beneficial option.
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Purchase and equip vehicles
Depending on the aspect of the business you want to operate in, you will need to get vehicles that will be the business. If there are other equipment and facilities that you will need, now is the time to put them together. You will need to buy vehicles that will suit the services that you will provide.
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Hire qualified employees
The transport business is not what everybody can just come in without experience and expertise. Remember, you don’t want to be constantly held responsible for accident victims caused by your drivers. Therefore, when hiring your outfield employees, you need to be super careful and the same goes for people working in the offices. Professionalism is of the essence.
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Insure
This is compulsory. You need to do that if you want to start a profitable transport business. Cars are always at the risk of having accidents, getting damaged or getting burnt by fire. Therefore, you must have vehicle insurance for your cars to avoid the risk of losing everything when you lose your cars in such terrible, unfortunate but inevitable occurrences.
The end point of your business and a very important aspect of the business is to have your business known to the potential customers. There has to be a budget for advertisement. You can check it out here. The marketing team will have more success when there is an advertisement plan being executed.
