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How He Started: I became a middleman. Yes, I found a man with trucks and told him I will sell your sands and for every load give me $10. In my first 2 weeks I moved sands worth $1600. getting a commission of $300. One episode that really pushed me to go into hardware…
I got a job to renovate a house and showed the lady mikoto of cheap items and helped her get discounts. We bought paints, sands tubs, sinks, electrical items worth $7000.When I charged 1800 to do the renovations she said you want to buy a car? I was pained and left the job as I had saved her in excess of $900 using my contacts.
Let’s go to stats a bit: 1. Zim has a housing backlog of over 1 million and it’s still growing, 2. In Byo over 2000 plans are submitted yearly, 3. A house needs between $10 000 to $60 000 in materials to be completed.These are items that a bought on cash.
Startup Figures:To start a hardware business you need between $0.00 like me to $10 000. There are these types of hardware, General hardware or specialised hardware, eg paints hardware, electrical or plumbing,
Shifting to Supply: However, in my journey as a builder I discovered some things that made me move towards supply.1. Even if you direct prospective home owners to the cheaper mikoto they wont thank you. In fact they want a further discount on your labour charge.2. Its the suppliers who give you ye drink for bringing a client.3. Labour fee is paid over a long period but all materials are paid up front on cash. I decided to move over to supply.
Requirements: A general hardware is capital and human resource intensive as construction is very broad. You need manpower who understand, plumbing, electrical etc.
Mostly those main items you need to build.
Cement Tricks: The curious case of cement, cement has a profit of 70 cents a bag. But cement is a client puller. Low profits but it pulls people who buy other items.
