Honestly speaking, this January alone, my ears are full of questions from people–offline and online–who want to start a small business in 2023. I get messages from people asking me different kinds of questions: what kind of business can I start? Do you think this business will be good for me? Wouldn’t be a waste if I invest in starting this business? What are the lucrative business ideas in Nigeria?
I know that more people are facing the same challenge of picking a lucrative business idea to start in 2023. And for the benefit of all, I will be making the answers to the common questions from aspiring entrepreneurs public– so that many people can benefit from them.
Being a business owner myself with several side hustles, I’m much aware of how overwhelming it is for people who have never been in the business world before to start a business from scratch. I can guide you with experience in this blog post.
If there is no demand for your products and services, the Nigerian market, to the best of my knowledge, is unforgiving. Unforgiving in the sense that it doesn’t care how much you invest in starting the business. It cares not about your business ideas. It doesn’t give a damn about how much time and energy you have put into the idea. You just have to ensure that there is high demand for what you’re offering in the marketplace.
The business ideas I will be sharing with you here are backed up with recent data. They are not just randomly picked. They are properly selected. And if you act with this information, and pick any idea to work on, you will record business success.
Let’s dive in!
1. Barbershop and salon business
Wanting to feel good and look good is intrinsic to humans. We feel naturally confident when we appear good to ourselves, our loved ones, and even our enemies.
Barbershops and salons are some of the places we visit to have and maintain our good looks. No matter the economic condition, people troop in salons and barbershops for their various hair services–especially on weekends and during festive seasons.
Most salons these days have an all-encompassing list of hair and skin care services to make women look gorgeous from their hair to their toenails. And they love to visit a place where they can get all or most services done at once.
Men got barbershops for having their haircuts, shave, and hair treatment most of the time.
Barbershops and salon businesses are recession-proof businesses. So essential to our existence to the extent that we can’t do without it.
Globally, the salon industry is worth billions of dollars. In Nigeria, it’s a growing multi-million naira industry. It’s one of the best and most lucrative businesses in Nigeria.
If you have the capital and the required resources, nothing should stop you from going into the business in 2023.
The capital required depends on the location you are setting up your salon and the standard you are aiming at.
No doubt, the salon and barbershop business is a location-based business. The business thrives well in residential areas with working middle-class people. They can afford to pay for good services.
Have a business plan, get a shop/place in an easily accessible location, set up the place decently, employ workers, and do the marketing.
Managing a barbershop and salon business requires good managerial skills. You manage the shop, you manage your workers, and your customers too.
It needs social and emotional intelligence. It requires good social and emotional intelligence skills–you can be learned easily. Barbershop and salon business is people business, so it requires the skills to manage people effectively.
You can read the book, How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. You read Emotional Intelligence by Dale Coleman.
Are you busy? Go on Youtube, and watch video episodes about managing people and emotional intelligence.
It’s not required that you can make and cut hair yourself to start the business. If you have some knowledge about the business aspect and manage it and the people, it’s enough.
Pay your workers commissions, or rent out seats to them, they pay you weekly. They look for customers themselves. Never pay any stylist, barber, pedicurist, or massager salaries. Any professional working in your salon shouldn’t be paid a salary. Your cleaner can earn a salary.
If you are confused or face challenges in starting the business, send a message to me on WhatsApp.
Let’s move on to the next business idea.
You cannot go wrong to make money if you go into the cosmetics business in Nigeria and Africa at large. Nigerians like to look good. It’s part of our identity.
The market worths billions of dollars and it’s growing at a rapid rate. The cosmetics business is one of the best lucrative business ideas you can start in 2023 and make serious money.
The cosmetics business involves buying cosmetics products like powders, creams, hair products, lipsticks, makeup kits and other cosmetics products and items from manufacturers, distributors, and wholesalers, stocking them, reselling them to wholesalers, retailers, and final consumers and making profits.
There are different kinds of traders in the market. Distributors are on top of the chain, then wholesalers, then retailers. You choose the type of trader you want to be, then get a business plan, secure capital ready and start the business.
The size of the capital depends on the trader you want to be. You need a lot of capital and a big store to start the business. Wholesaling doesn’t require huge capital like distributorship. Retailing requires the lowest amount of capital.
According to the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, Nigerians import beauty and personal care products $6.41 billion into the country in 2022 alone. You are shocked? That is the volume we imported in just one year.
Surely, one of the best lucrative business ideas to start in the year 2023 is the cosmetics business.
Do you need consultancy services for this business? Check the contact page to reach out to me.
3. Gadgets and accessories business
According to statistics, on gadgets and accessories and home goods, Nigerians spent $20.4 billion in 2022 on importation. That’s 2022 alone.
The gadgets and accessories business is a lucrative business to start in 2023 in Nigeria and on the soil of Africa. The need for mobile telecommunications is evident in our lifestyle. We spent a huge amount of money importing gadgets and accessories into the country and the continent at large.
The large population of Nigeria is made of young people and they like to own phones, tabs, home gadgets to make life easy for them, and accessories to extend the functionality of their devices. Even, in some situations, they are a form of signalling goods.
Gadget accessories alone are a big business that has sprouted up many millionaires, not to talk of combining the two.
If you want to start the gadget accessories business in 2023, I have an ebook for you. It was published to take anyone from scratch to an expert trader in the business. Read more about the ebook here.
Let’s proceed to the next topic.
4. Wholesale provision business
In the year 2040, Nigeria’s population will surpass that of the UK and some top countries in the world. Our population is growing alarmingly. Newborn babies are entering this world via Nigeria every 30 seconds adding to the existing population of almost 300 million people.
300 million people need soap to have their bath with soap daily, do their laundry with detergent, take snacks when they are hungry, drink beverages, starch their dresses, smoke cigarettes, wear perfume, use body spray, and repel mosquitoes and insects with insecticides. The list cannot be exhausted.
The wholesale provision business is a lucrative business any business-minded person can start in 2023 and record success. The population is growing–this means you will have customers for your products.
Get your capital ready, rent a store/shop, prepare a business plan, stock goods, and begin selling.
Do you need assistance? Send a message to me on WhatsApp.
5. Laundry and dry-cleaning business
The busiest sets of people you can find in this country are living in the city. They commute to work on weekdays. They get stuck in traffic. They get home late tired and drained on most days.
The jobs are mentally taxing, and staying long in traffic is the king of all forms of stress. They have no time to do their laundry themselves. People who even find it difficult to get time for rest cannot have time for washing and ironing their dresses.
The population of working-class people is increasing. The bulk of the population does more mental work than physical. And there is one thing about the brain: it hates distractions to function optimally. With little stress like this, the brain is tired. This is why they cannot afford to be paying attention to little things like doing laundry.
By setting up a laundry and dry-cleaning business to meet the need of these people, you will make a fortune.
You can stop searching for lucrative business ideas to work on by picking this if you have the passion and are determined to give what the business will take.
6. Food canteen/restaurant business
A good meal is the basic need of every living creature. Human beings can only survive a few days without it. It’s a survival thing.
According to the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, Nigerians spend almost 60% of their income on food items. This implies that the bulk of their earnings goes to feeding. Our big part of economic activities is in the food sector.
Food canteens and restaurants are places people visit to get their favourite meals to satisfy their pangs of hunger every day. People who don’t eat at all nourish their bodies once a day.
As a good student of the markets, anywhere that I visit, I look at the bulk of the business activities in that area and check the trends of the newly-opened businesses. If you count ten newly opened ones, six out of them are in the food industry.
To start a canteen and restaurant business in Nigeria, you need a business plan, capital, and a good location. And your food must be delicious and you must attend to people’s hunger needs on time.
News of successful entrepreneurs is out there to read. You can join their league this year.
Are you ready? Start now.
7. Food supplements and vitamins business
Those who value their health can spend any amount on their wellness. Because they know the importance of their health, and they are aware that they cannot enjoy anything in this physical world without good health.
Food supplements and vitamins are a big market to enter in Nigeria. In 2022, Nigerians spent roughly $450 million to import supplements and vitamins into the country.
People take supplements and vitamins daily. Even me too. I value my health. What’s wealth without health?
If you look at the number of existing supplement companies in Nigeria and check for new ones, their stay in the market and the entry of new ones suggest that the market is not saturated.
If you want to start a business, don’t about your marketing like those GNLD people. Disturbing people up and down the road. 90% of the users of vitamins and supplements don’t walk on the road, so they are likely not to meet them in just any place.
There was a time when my immunity was low. I visited hospitals every day to consult doctors. I got tired. I got depressed.
While surfing the web one day, I stumbled upon an article explaining how someone can boost his immunity no matter how low it is.
I left everything I was reading to read the long article till the end. I have not finished reading before I decided that I’m going to buy the supplement at any amount. Yes. This is how those who value their health think.
I purchased two cups of the supplement for N34,000, and it lasted me for 3 months.
People search for information on the Internet to improve their health and wellness. You can reach the right audience by starting a health blog. Do keyword research to discover the information people are looking for. Create content around that topics. Promote the blog to get views, then, market your products to them.
Instead of investing much in renting a big shop when starting the lucrative business of supplements and vitamins in the year 2023 in Nigeria, you can get a medium one, and invest the rest of the capital to set up a blog.
If you don’t have the technical knowledge, you can outsource everything–including the content creation aspect.
Do you need someone to talk to? I can be of help.
In the next business idea, we’ll be talking about something that has to do with the International market. Let’s go.
8. Mini-exportation business
Another best lucrative business anyone can start in Nigeria in 2023 is a mini-exportation business. If you are looking for ways of making US dollars while in Nigeria, the mini-exportation business can open the door for you.
Mini-exportation business involves exporting valuable products and items minimally from Nigeria to another country especially–overseas countries.
There are some products and items in Nigeria that are of high worth in the International market because of their demand and value.
You must have heard of the term exporter. It’s used for people who export stuff to other countries to make money.
Pre-Internet, venturing into the business requires huge capital and lots of licenses and deep knowledge. A friend of mine once said exporters belong to different kinds of cult societies because they keep the secret of the business close.
Internet, as a leveller, opens up businesses and enables people to start exportation with the few resources at their disposal. This is why we have exportation on a minimal scale.
Different kinds of products can be exported and traded in International markets. There is high demand for bitter kola, kola nut, coffee bean, charcoal, and even our local food items like garri, egusi, dried fish, etc. African restaurants buy these food items from people to meet their customers’ demands.
To start the business, get some knowledge by investing in some learning materials and manual guides, get the capital, register your company, get a license from NEPC, register on global trading platforms, get customers and deliver on time.
The fashion business needs no introduction. Let’s say the fact: the large population of Nigerians have an unbridled taste for fashion items. This explains why we spent $1.78 billion on the importation of fashion items in the year 2022.
The fashion business is broad and generally lucrative. Any niche and segment of the market you choose to participate in is profitable if you have a good business plan, and can implement things on time.
There is a saying: Nigeria is a waste bin of overseas’ countries, which is true. Some people are generating decent money from selling used items known as tokunbo.
There is no item you cannot find a used one in Nigeria. If you visit warehouses, markets, and even on the roadside, you will see people left and right displaying electronics, gadgets, computers, cars, dresses, kitchen items, chairs, mattresses, bras, shoes, furniture, motorcycles, bicycles, gym equipment, etc.
Selling tokunbo items has been a lucrative business in Nigeria, and 2023 is no different. The continuous fall of the populace’s purchasing power decreases the patronage of new items in Nigeria. If Nigeria cannot afford something new, they look for used alternatives.
Tokunbo business is broad. Pick the kinds of items you want to sell. Learn about it. Stock them. Start selling. That’s all.
Wrapping things up
Finally, you made it to the end of the exhaustive list of the best lucrative business ideas for 2023. You can pick and work on anyone that sparks your motivation.
If you pick any out of these–fashion business, barbershop and salon business, cosmetics business, wholesale provision business, gadgets and accessories business, wholesale provision business, food/canteen business, vitamins and supplements business, mini-exportation business, and laundry and dry-cleaning business–there is an existing market for you.
What do you think about these businesses? I would love to hear from you.
Do you have suggestions or contrary opinions? Please, leave them in the comment tab below. Also, do not hesitate to reach out if you need assistance.
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