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Posted by on February 27, 2010 at 01:44:53:

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Contents:



1. Introduction

2. Things to know

3. Requirements to start recharge voucher printing business

4. How to actually make money with this business

5. Sourcing for printing software and bulk pins

6. How to use the printing software

7. Conclusion

 

1. Introduction

The focus is Nigeria and the product? Recharge vouchers. Rechard vouchers are also called recharge cards in Nigeria althouth it is more properly called recharge vouchers, i.e. assuming you are not dealing with the plastic card.

You were excited when Telecommunications came in full swing to Nigeria to repalce the goodl old NITEL which was not able to deliver the required communucation service effectively. Yes, we've seen the coming in droves and they are harldy leaving. I'm talking about GSM companies in Nigeria like MTN, Glo and Econet >Celtel >Zain. They are hardly leaving the country, why? NIGERIA IS THE BIGGEST AFRICAN MARKET.

If you are thinking of the most profitable kind of business to do in Nigeria, then Telecoms related ones are not far off. It is a fast growing and profitable sector and because it is still growing, this is the best time to make quick gains from it. The RECHARGE CARD is a desired product such that it has equally become more important than food. People will at one time or the other sacrifice other items they equally need jsut to buy recharge cards. This is because recharge cards provide people with the ability to communicate on the GSM network wherever they are. People feed physically and financially on communication and it is an essential part of human existence. Even when one has no mone in his pocket, the fact that he can communicate can bring him food and other needs.

Recharge cards in the past was not known to the Nigerian environment, but one it came, it doesn't look like it will ever go again so it is becoming a growing need. Other items are becoming more and more sacrificed by people just for the sake of buying recharge cards and so in their hierachy of needs, it is climbing to number one.

There is enormous profit to be made from selling recharge vouchers to people in Nigeria especially in busy cities where they are a lot of people living or working there. If you involve in the printing and sale of such vouchers of MTN, Zain and Glo, you will be making a lot of profit if you know how to market it and limit your costs.

Most of what you will need to start this business is a computer and printer or having access to them but the main issue in this kind of business will be marketing - how to sell them fast.

In recharge card business, marketing is important and so you need to be able to discover new and reliable customers as well as selling it a price that will make you profit.

2. THINGS TO KNOW

Recharge card printing and selling business used to be for mostly big time distributors but now, it is becoming more and more an open market as there is freedom of entry and exit. Initially, only those with huge capital and right connections were able to enter into this kind of business but now everyone including you have the right to get involved in this venture.

Ever since newer softwares ame into the scene, then the internet as well as cheaper compputers, most of the above has changed as the business has become one for everybody and so there is equally increasing competition in terms of bigger discounts on purchases, different prices and so on. To be able to get involved in recharge card printing and sales, you need to be smart, literate and have the right tools and software to get yourself started and successful.

There are three ways you can start this business: LARGE SCALE, MEDIUM OR SMALL SCALE. All these are base on how much money you are initially bringing into the business e.g from N5m, N1m or N100,000.

It is a legal business as any other kind of business and so you need to trade with confidence and keep proper records of your income and expenses and pay tax where neccessary.

On a recent survey about the number of people in Nigeria using recharge cards monthly, it was more than 50 million! Now beat that. If you can only get a 1% share of that market, you could be selling to more than 500,000 people per month.

Recharge vouchers are the ideal product you can easily reproduce once you become a retailer so as to be able to satisfy the growing needs of your community. People may be saying that there is recession everywhere, but you see that it is very hard to say that one will not want to buy them for more than a week. People are increasing in urban as well as rural places an there is really no plan by govt to control population or immigration so recharge card business will continue to boom for a long time.

The recharge cards or vouchers come in various valuess like MTN 100, ZAIN 100, ZAIN 200, GLO 100, GLO 150, STARCOMMS 100. VISAFONE 100, 200 and when you print them, they come with the logos of the various GSM companies in Nigeria. This kind of business is very rewarding and lucrative but you need to be careful when you are just starting so as not to make too much losses or minor gaines. Caluculate your expenses to date and set your price for the vouchers in a way that it will not scare customers away or make you run losses.

Recharge cards sell faster than crude oil.

3. Requirements to start recharge voucher printing business

You will be involved with printing and selling recharge cards or vouchers for the various telecom networks in Nigeria which includes; MTN, ZAIN, GLO, STARCOMMS, VISAFONE, ETISALAT and so on.

Things you need to start this business:
(A) Computer (Laptop or Desktop) or access to one.

(B) Printer (or access to one).

(C) Software.

(D) Bulk pins (These are the actual pins in CDs of flash drives that contains the actual recharge pins and should be highy secured from loss or theft).

(E) Email address: Yahoo or Gmail account will do. This is to be receiving official mails and your Bulk pins. Don't share your email account or password.

(F) Internet access: Private or public(cybercafe). Private is preferred to avoid hacking and loss of password

If you don't have internet access, you may have to choose the option of buying the ORANGE BOX MACHINE which will then not require a Computer or Software since the machine will print the vouchers straight for sale.

You will have to pay for your BULK PINS at a bank or designated office and they will send the pins to you via your email account wherever you are in Nigeria. Most suppliers of the recharge pins however deal with software although you can get the Orange machine from some of them e.g. CITISERVE NIGERIA LTD (012704370).

Another thing to note is that if you want to buy bulk pins, you will have to buy them in bulks of 100s and above as you will not be able to buy less than 100, e.g buying 99 pins of GLO 100, MTN 100 or Zain 100; You may only buy from from 100s and multiples of 100s like 200s, 300s, e.t.c. from the dealers.

The major challenge finally is marketing your product when you finally get them. You can print the pins gradually and not necessarily at once as you are about to sell them.

 

4. How to actually make money with this business

This is how you actually make the hundreds of thousands of naira that we are talking about, every month. Suppose you buy MTN N100 pins at N94 per pin and sell it to customers at N100, you would have gained a profit of N6 for every voucher sold. Now suppose you sold about 1000 vouchers at that same rate, you would have gained a profit of N6 * 1000 = N6,000. That is an appreciable gain and as far as business is concerned, you are moving forward. You can also become a secondary distributor by reselling it at a lower price to your bulk buying customers or retailers at N96 and so you gain about N2 per pin sold. Which means to gain N100,000 per month, you have to sell 50,000 MTN 100 VOUCHERS per month to retailers or customers. But the focus here is to understand that it is quite better to resell to retailers if there are fast buying retailers in your area who are really in need of recharge pins but do not have sufficient capital to buy directly from the source. So to gain a lot from reselling to them, what you really need is higher capital. For instance to be able to sell 50,000 MTN 100 recharge vouchers a month to retailers at N96, you will need 94 * 50,000 = N4,700,000 a month as capital purchases. It doesn't mean that you will have to have the entire capital at once, I'm talking about the total purchases you will need to make from the dealers in a month in order to make a profit of N100,000 per month.

But if you are focusing on selling to ordinary customers and want to make a profit of N100,000 per month, then if you buy MTN 100 pins from the dealers at N94 and sell for N100, then you will need to sell N100,000/(N100 - N94) = 17,000 MTN 100 PINS per month. That implies that you have to buy 17,000*94 = N1,598,000 worth of MTN 100 pins a month.

So, in essence to make N100,000 per month from recharge voucher busines, you will need to have purchased and sold mtn 100 naira pins worth N1598000 or bought and sold pins worth N61,461 per day for 26 working days in a month.

(A) Reselling to retailers:

You need to buy 50,000 recharge pins at N94 which will cost you N4,700,000 and sell it at N96 per month. Don't sell to retailers in single quantities, sell to them in packs. That is the reason why you are selling the lowest price to them at N96. You can sell to retailers in packs of 10 vouchers. A pack consists of 10 recharge vouchers. It is like a set of vouchers you sell to high qty buyers for a discount. So you can sell a pack of MTN 100 vouchers to retailers at the N960 per pack and be making N20 from each sale of a pack. If you sell 200 packs a day to 200 retailers, you would have made a profit of N4,000/day.

(B) Selling to customers:

You need to buy 50,000 recharge pins at N94 which will cost you N1,598,000 and sell it at N100 per month

Don't lose hope yet, even if you don't have the capital of N4,700,000 or N 1,598,000 to spend per month. You can still start with as little as N10,000, N20,000 or more to buy from the dealers. As I have said, the dealers sell in 100s and so you could start with as low as N10,000 by buying 100 units of MTN, Zain or Glo 100 recharge pins at N94 per pin. This will cost you N94*100 = N9400 and you can buy more depending on your capital. The thing with this kind of business is that the more capital you have, the more the likelihood of making more profit from it, such that even in times or price changes or scarcity, you can still be making profit from it where small investors will be losing.

Note: The above calculations are based on buying and selling vouchers of MTN 100 only. Different calculations will be required if you are going to buy and sell other denominations like MTN 500 which you can buy for N450 and so you can make N50*2000 = N100,000 per month if you sell 2000 units of the voucher and for that you will then need a capital purchase of about N900,000

5. Sourcing for printing software and bulk pins

So the question now is, where do you get the software and bulk pins from? You need to know the sources.

There are a whole lot of sources from where you can get your recharge pins from and I am going to give you a few of them. You can discover new ones by yourselves:

(A) Prepaid Nigeria

Address: Penthouse, 5th floor, 6 - 8 Ne Isheri road, Ikeja, Lagos

Tel: 08032036770, 01-7914279

website: www.ngrgsm.com

Software is free here and you can download it from their websites - www.ngrgsm.com, www.bodlinkvouchers.com or www.prepaidnigeria.com

You can get your pin at any location in Nigeria through your email account.

(B) Citiserve Network

Address: 368 Ikorodu road, Maryland, Lagos

Tel: 08033604265, 08055633648

No need for computer or software here as you will needthe Orange box machine which you may have to buy at N35,000. You will equally need to order for the pinwith a minimum of N5,000

(C) Ringo Telecoms

Address: 117 Allen Avenue Ikeja, Lagos (Tantalizer Building)

Tel: 08032030771, 08060079090, 08054505959

Software and installation price is at N15,000 and voucher rates flunctuate and so is negotiable. With a minimum of N95,000, you eill be taught at the point of purchase hoe to use the software to print the recharge vouchers/cards.

So what are you waiting for. Just get started today and get the financial independence you have been dreaming of.

 

6. HOW TO USE THE PRINTING SOFTWARE

A.To Log in to the Marketplace
Double click on the Software Icon (A Naira (=N=) sign on the desktop) to launch the application.
Log in with your User Name and Password. (This is provided during first time use).
B. To upload Inventory i.e. electronic pins of either ZAIN, STARCOMMS, GLO or MTN purchased.
Before attempting to upload, be sure of the location of your PIN file, i.e. the drive the file has been saved in, e.g My Document, Flach Drive or CD for easy location during upload.
After login with your User Name and Password;
- Click on Admin options
- Click on Upload Inventory
- Select the desired Network and click continue:
A box appears requesting the upload password and the format to upload. Type in the supplied upload password. (PASSWORD NOT NECESSARY IN LATEST VERSION)

C.If the pin file was encrypted, keep the Decrypt PIN file checked otherwise keep it unchecked. (Your PIN is delivered to your email encrypted or unencrypted based on your preference)
- A File Open Dialog appears showing list of files and folders. Choose the location where your PIN was saved.
Specify the PIN file by single clicking on the file, then click "Open". Alternatively, double click on the file and the upload begins automatically, updating as it progresses.
- Wait for the file to upload successfully. Note that while uploading, the update shows at the top of dialogue box.
- At the completion of the upload, if successful, upload success information is displayed thus;
- Click Ok and"Back to Menu" in the next dialogue box to check the inventory. This will display the available number of pins on each network according to their denominations.
- Click on "Check Inventory". This displays the amount of pins available on the inventory for each network in accordance with their denomination.
D. To Print Pins:
- Click on "Print Batch", a new menu appears with this information:


- Select the Network, Denomination and Number of Vouchers to be printed.
- Finally, select the number of pins to print; 10, 20, 30, 40, 100 and click Send to Volume Printer. (Where Thermal Printer is installed, click on the Box "Use Thermal Printer". This enables - vouchers to be printed using a thermal printer.)
*Images of the pins are flashed on the screen while being sent to the printer.

To print more pins, click Cancel and then repeat the above process again and again at up to 1000 pins at a time until pins exhausted or satisfied with number of printed pins for the period.

E. To Delete Printed Inventory
Used pins can be deleted to avoid congestion of the database of the application. To delete used or sold pins;
- Go to Administration option by clicking the "Admin Options" button.
- Click on "Delete Used Airtime".
Select the Network to delete (Celtel, Glo, Starcomms or MTN).

- Click "Continue". A box appears requesting your assurance to delete pins.

- Click "Yes" if sure to delete otherwise choose "No".
To return to the main menu, always click "Back to Menu".

*Note that after deleting inventory, reprint function is NOT available on deleted pins

7. CONCLUSION

Get started today and see how this growing business will redefine the shape of your financial life for the year. Don't put all your investment into this business if you are a newbie but get to know more about it as you continue to make profitable returns from it. Try to reduce your purchase, printing and other costs in order to maximize your earnings from recharge vouchers.



Comments:
Re: How to make Money Printing and Selling recharge cards in Nigeria Posted by Aliyu on March 05, 2010 at 07:46:54:

where is the software?

Re: How to make Money Printing and Selling recharge cards in Nigeria Posted by adetunji a ajibade on March 21, 2010 at 07:09:40:

kindly enlighten me well on how to do this business now that i am thinking on how to stand on my own apart from the token money received as my salary thanks.

Re: How to make Money Printing and Selling recharge cards in Nigeria Posted by on March 21, 2010 at 10:52:26:

@ Adetunji, I would advise you to start with a small amount since you are new to the business. Start with say N20,000 and get and print the pins for resale.

@Aliyu, you can get the software for printing pins, you can get one from Bodlink vouchers at http://www.bodlinkvouchers.com/VcDownload.htm. Other sites like prepaidnigeria.com and ngrgsm.com don't seem to be working now

Re: How to make Money Printing and Selling recharge cards in Nigeria Posted by soyoye on March 26, 2010 at 06:50:03:

i need the software right away, how do i download

Re: How to make Money Printing and Selling recharge cards in Nigeria Posted by christian samson on August 18, 2010 at 05:51:24:

wantto retailer.

Re: How to make Money Printing and Selling recharge cards in Nigeria Posted by Maxy Ossy on August 29, 2010 at 09:42:21:

Afrocommerce,Prepaidnigeria;Ringo Telecoms,CitiServe Network are all not reachable online making it futile attempts downloading The AIRTIME CAFE CONSOLE software.
Could you kindly give names of current Licensed GSM VOUCHER Dealers.
Thanks.

Re: How to make Money Printing and Selling recharge cards in Nigeria Posted by emem on September 04, 2010 at 15:22:45:

hi, why is that i am not able to see anything related to the above mentioned business, after clicking on the links provided? pls i need some good information on how to start printing recharge vouchers. thanks.

Re: How to make Money Printing and Selling recharge cards in Nigeria Posted by FelIx Okoli on September 04, 2010 at 15:22:45:

Some websites are no longer working and I;m thinking those companies have closed down.
Don't bother going to these websites:
www.ngrgsm.com
www.prepaidnigeria.com
Try and find new recharge card dealers

Re: How to make Money Printing and Selling recharge cards in Nigeria Posted by SAW on Monday September 20, 2010 at 16:12:44:

Pls let me have the correct site. I ve not gotten any.

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