Provision/Grocery Store Business In Nigeria: Guide on How To Start (2024)
A provision store is a retail outlet where goods such as food items and other consumer goods are sold. It is one of the lucrative businesses you can engage in out there and make you some money. It involves the game of buying in bulk, that is at wholesale and sell at a retail price which is a bit higher compared to the wholesale price you bought the goods at.
How To Start Provision Store Business in Nigeria
If you need to set up a provision/grocery store business or better still a mini supermarket in Nigeria, then you are at the right page as we will be reeling out a guide on how to go about owning your grocery store anywhere in the country.
What you need to start a successful provision store business is just a good location and customer relation and you will be successful. Follow the easy steps below to start your provision/grocery store here in Nigeria.
HOW TO START A PROVISION/GROCERY STORE BUSINESS IN NIGERIA: STEP BY STEP GUIDE
If you want to start this grocery store business, the following steps are what to do to own your provision store in Nigeria today:
STEP 1: DO YOUR RESEARCH AND DRAW A BUSINESS PLAN FOR THE GROCERY STORE BUSINESS
Research is very important in starting this provision/ grocery store business. You need to know how competitive it is to start this super-market business. You can’t open a provision store in an area where a lot of them exist except of course if you have your own unique way to attract customers.
You also need to research and decide the goods you will sell and their wholesale price and associated retail price so you will know if you are okay with the profit margin.
After that, decide on how big you need your shop to be and the amount you will need. After all these and other research you have done, write out your business plan for a provision/grocery store business.
Within this plan, should contain every necessary information that would help you succeed in the business. Things like customers background, the location of the provision/grocery store, the products that you would sell and how to draw customers to your provision store should suffice within the business plan.
STEP 2: PROVIDE THE CAPITAL NEEDED TO START YOUR PROVISION STORE BUSINESS
No business can begin without funding. At this stage, after conducting your feasibility study and drawing up your plan, the next step is to get capital needed to start your provision store business. This would be the budget you would use to begin the store proper.
While there are several factors that can determine how much is needed to start a grocery store in Nigeria, you must be willing to take certain risk depending on the type of grocery store business you want to start. Big chain supermarkets in Nigeria use up millions of Naira to start theirs and stock up.
The capital or amount needed to start your own small scale provision/grocery store can cost from ₦300,000 to ₦500,000. This would not include the cost of renting the shop but just stocking up necessary goods and provisions you want to sell.
STEP 3: GETTING THE GROCERY SHOP AND EQUIPMENT
The next step is getting a store. The location of the grocery store should be in a populated area where you know people are interested in the goods you are interested in selling. Try not to set up your provision/grocery store business where there are similar shops doing the same thing as you.
After getting the store, get a carpenter to construct shelves, tables and chairs you will need. Made sure he uses quality wood to save you the problem of replacement in the future. There are some items needed to set up your provision/grocery store in Nigeria.
Things like having a POS, shopping nylons, chairs, wooden shelf, table with drawers, books for recording sales made, etc are just few of them.
STEP 4: REGISTER YOUR PROVISION STORE BUSINESS
In Nigeria, it’s very important to register your business so that you can operate legally and customers can see your provision store business as legit. The body in charge of registering a business name in Nigeria is the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC)
STEP 5: BUYING YOUR GOODS AND STOCK UP YOUR PROVISION/GROCERY STORE
The success of your business depends on how much you buy your goods. You have to research well on the goods that will help make profit for the store and locate the market where you can get these goods as a relatively cheap price. Needless to say, you are buying in wholesale and not at a retail price and as such, you are assured of a profit if you had done your research well.
The following are some provision items like laundry items, drinks, beverages, toiletries, snacks and house hold items you can use to stock up your grocery store: Starch, toilet soap, tissue paper, diapers, toilet cleaners, detergent, Dettol, body creams, facial and hair creams, pen and pencils, relaxer, toothbrush, bulbs, beverages, milk, soft drinks, alcohol, etc.
STEP 6: RECORD KEEPING OF THE PROVISION/MINI SUPERMARKET
You need to keep record. Record of everything from what you buy, to what you sell, down to how much you spent out of the money and how much you are investing or reinvesting.
With this, you will know if you are making profit or not and from the record, be able to tweak the part of the provision store business that is not working.
STEP 7: ADVERTISE YOUR GROCERY STORE BUSINESS
This should be the last step to do if you must be a successful provision store business owner in the country. Advertising your business using the proper channels like online websites, banner advertising, words of mouth and fliers can go a long way if you must draw customers to your business.
CONCLUSION
Venturing into a provision store business in Nigeria is a lucrative one as people purchase household items on a daily basis. If you follow our guide on how to start your provision store, you should start seeing profit in record time.
