Today, technology continues to make our lives easier presenting a myriad of business opportunities to the current tech-savvy generation.
Some of these businesses do not need an office set up or a rental place in our busy cities and towns but can be operated from the comfort of home premises.
Among these small-scale businesses you can try out from home include:
Buying products wholesale and selling them online
Many businesses import goods in bulk and sell them at a profit from a particular page online, you can also create some of your products or goods yourself, which is cheaper, and sell them online.
One of the best ways to do this is through WhatsApp by creating a group and starting adding people you know then they also help add others.
Explain the purpose of the group, which is to sell certain products. You can then team up with other importers to bring in goods that you want to sell.
During shipping and after the goods arrive, keep updating members to psyche them up and receive orders.
I tell you, there are so many individuals in Nairobi who are currently doing well using this approach. Their main focus is household and women products.
Selling unwanted items
Have you heard of ‘mali mali’ guys? These guys normally work around residential areas carrying new household items such as lunch boxes, bathing troughs, that they give in exchange for unused clothes, shoes that they go and resell.
They bank on the fact that a lot of us either have so many clothes we rarely wear, clothes that don’t fit us anymore and we do not know the best way to make something out of them.
You can also try it out, so why not create an online thrift store and start getting clients who buy clothes and toys too. You will be making extra cash that can be placed in savings.
Makeup
Makeup is a growing business right now, a lot of people are making a lot of money from selling makeup products online.
In fact, the beauty industry in Kenya is valued at over 100 billion shillings. As of 2017, statistics show that Kenya’s colour cosmetics market was estimated to be worth 5.4 billion shillings
You can buy these products and start from your neighbourhood, creating an online marketplace on social media where you can reach more customers.
Do not worry about how you can reach them out. You can work with a delivery service to make it easier for you and your clients.
Starting a print-on-demand business
A print-on-demand business doesn’t require you to hold any inventory or ship anything yourself. Print-on-demand even offers you more flexibility to customize white-label products with your own creative designs.
If you have design skills, you can create your own designs. But if not, you can always hire the talent that you need.
The first thing you need to do is know a specific niche you want to get in, know your clients, are you printing designs for pets, clothes, mugs, and plates, or gamers, there are a lot of different people you can create designs for. Find the right one for you.
Food business
Currently getting a space in a town or in a crowded marketplace to run your kibandaski business can be quite hard as you will have to face it out with town askaris from time to time.
But you cannot run out of opportunities. Start making your food from home then you can deliver to offices or Juakali work stations.
If you are a keen observer in Nairobi, you will be able to see some women carrying food from their homes to an industrial area in the morning and at noon.
You can also make your own food and sell it to people, it can even be just snacks such as cakes, sausages, kebabs, samosas, hotdogs. A lot of people are very interested in buying snacks for different occasions, growing your client base and your business grows from there.
Last word– Running a small-scale business from home can be quite interesting because you have the space, time and own equipment to run it. However, you need to remember to be disciplined as it comes with much freedom and you still have to make money.