Post: #1

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Does anyone here have experience exporting to Africa?

That, or experience in B2B Africa e-commerce?

Any and all feedback about your Africa business experiences, positive or negative, would really be appreciated.

Cheers.

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Post: #2

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I've been getting most of my Africa information from a combination of The Economist and Mark Mobius' blog:

http://mobius.blog.franklintempleton.com...in-africa/

http://www.economist.com/node/21541015

http://www.economist.com/news/middle-eas...rdone-more

http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychar...aily_chart

These are superb conceptual and birds-eye-view visions of business and economics in Africa, which are obviously fascinating. However, these publications clearly lack the visceral human touch that I imagine some seasoned Africa entrepreneurs can share here.

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Post: #3

I don't have any experience but I can tell you there is a lot of money to be made, which I am sure you know.

I hear they are desperate for old cellphones.

Post: #4

I had strongly considered selling second-hand clothing in Ghana and Nigeria. There's STRONG demand for brand name western clothing in those countries. I know a girl in DC who was doing this and made good money, though she did have to pay bribes, especially in Nigeria.

If you search on youtube you'll find videos of foreigners in West Africa doing this sort of thing.

What's funny is that second hand clothing is preferred over brand new clothing because there's suspicion about fakes and second hand clothing offers proof of quality if the product is indeed a brand name one. A fake, on the other hand, would diminish in quality rapidly.

My preferred airline no longer does travel to Ghana which I wanted to focus on over Nigeria. Nigeria is pretty chaotic and overwhelming from what I imagine. So in the end the cost/benefit calculation just didn't add up.

Post: #5

This is a good list of investment climate statements for various countries.

http://www.state.gov/e/eb/rls/othr/ics/2012/index.htm

Post: #6

(03-22-2013 01:01 PM)Hencredible Casanova Wrote:  I had strongly considered selling second-hand clothing in Ghana and Nigeria. There's STRONG demand for brand name western clothing in those countries. I know a girl in DC who was doing this and made good money, though she did have to pay bribes, especially in Nigeria.

If you search on youtube you'll find videos of foreigners in West Africa doing this sort of thing.

What's funny is that second hand clothing is preferred over brand new clothing because there's suspicion about fakes and second hand clothing offers proof of quality if the product is indeed a brand name one. A fake, on the other hand, would diminish in quality rapidly.

My preferred airline no longer does travel to Ghana which I wanted to focus on over Nigeria. Nigeria is pretty chaotic and overwhelming from what I imagine. So in the end the cost/benefit calculation just didn't add up.

Your post reminds me of an article I read a couple years ago on the popularity of NHL hockey jerseys all over West Africa, it looks so funny seeing them wearing the jerseys:

http://www.nationalpost.com/multimedia/p...id=2784523

From the article, "We don't know the game," Joe Peters admits, wiping sweat off his cheek. "But the jerseys are very fine. Very high quality."

The booming and controversial used-clothes business in Africa means hockey jerseys can be found sprinkled throughout this war-torn West African nation. Bizarrely, the authentic hockey jersey has become a status symbol among the poor for its "premium-grade" rating and high price tag ($4 CDN).

"It is tough, tough material," street vendor Evelyn Togbah raves. "If you buy it, you can wear it for 20 years."

http://i47.tinypic.com/29dxpuw.jpg[/IMG]]

Go Oilers! hahaha

Post: #7

One of my good buddies has been pitching me to join forces with him and export products from China to a western African country. He estimates that two containers per year would make a pretty coin. I will do my due diligence on this before doing anything but Africa does attract me for its high risk / high reward ratio.

I dumid see a lot of africans in Hkg and GZ tough buying special women fashion items by the truckloads.

Post: #8

I knew a older chinese man selling laptops to a country in westafrika. He told me how he made the deal. He asked an Afrikan guy in Germany if they could do this business. Then they both flew to China. The Afrikan guy watched how the container was filled and shipped so he could be shure things are going right.

Post: #9

(03-22-2013 05:38 AM)youngmobileglobal Wrote:  -

Does anyone here have experience exporting to Africa?

That, or experience in B2B Africa e-commerce?

Any and all feedback about your Africa business experiences, positive or negative, would really be appreciated.

Cheers.

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Wow! I should spend more time in this section-I'm only just now seeing this thread. Generally IME in Africa commodities are a good bet. Margins are good but there are downsides. People don't understand the value of contracts verbal or written and the law doesn't enforce them.
Also the trading culture is more underhanded bazaar type-deliberate underweight and shortcounts are to be expected.
Can you be more specific? what exactly do you want to know?

Post: #10

(03-25-2013 07:28 AM)bkamurray Wrote:  

(03-22-2013 05:38 AM)youngmobileglobal Wrote:  -

Does anyone here have experience exporting to Africa?

That, or experience in B2B Africa e-commerce?

Any and all feedback about your Africa business experiences, positive or negative, would really be appreciated.

Cheers.

-

Wow! I should spend more time in this section-I'm only just now seeing this thread. Generally IME in Africa commodities are a good bet. Margins are good but there are downsides. People don't understand the value of contracts verbal or written and the law doesn't enforce them.
Also the trading culture is more underhanded bazaar type-deliberate underweight and shortcounts are to be expected.
Can you be more specific? what exactly do you want to know?

Most types of hard data I can find on my own.

I'm looking for more "Success Story" and "Horror Story" type feedback about specific experiences that people have had doing business in Africa.

Any feedback would be appreciated, thank you.

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Post: #11

I'm not a businessman myself (at least not yet), but some second-hand stories I've been given:

- A friend of a friend of mine used to drive from South Africa to the central Africa lakes region in order to buy exotic central African lake fish. Then he'd drive all the way back and sell the fish for a respectable profit. At first he didn't have a passport, so he borrowed his sister's passport and traveled on his sister's passport. When the border guards would bother to check, a small bribe was enough to smooth things over. Most of the border guards are barely paid a living wage and every little friendly 'tip' helps, apparently.

- An east African doctor I met once, who was in South Africa for an extending period for training purposes, apparently owned the first bottled water company in his homeland. He hustled together some shareholders for funding, then spent all his money importing some bottling machines from India into his home country. At that point a politician locked up all his machines at the customs house and demanded an exorbitant bribe to release them - it was so bad, that either he could leave the machines and go broke, or pay the bribe and be even more broke. In the end he just played a waiting game (which made the guys at customs realise that he really was broke) and called in some connections and he was eventually able to get his machines through customs and he started the first local bottled water company. At the time I was interested in building medical training devices and his advice to me was to get the machines from India, because they are much cheaper there.

- A guy I know supplies some shops in Mozambique. The work at the moment is steady, monotonous, and lucrative, as more and more Mozambiquans can now afford to buy goods. He speaks fluent Portuguese and he says as long as you can speak the language you can do business there. If you can't speak the language, you will struggle in Mozambique.

- Guys at the major African air ambulance companies all complain about the Francophone countries, especially Democratic Republic of Congo, that you can't get anything done there without knowing French. An air traffic controller friend of mine has the same complaint whenever they are trying to liase with the airports in that general vicinity. I get a similar impression above, that to do business in the Congo you have to know French. The air ambulance doctors are sometimes sent in with cash in case bribes are required (yes, there have been cases where critically ill air ambulance cases have been refused clearance to take off until a bribe is paid. It's sad to think that someone would be so greedy as to delay the evacuation of a sick person).

- Important medications in South Africa occasionally are not available for months due to delays in moving them through customs (Most South African medications are not made within the country). It's kind of horrifying having to chop and change a patient's treatment because his usual life-saving meds are sitting in a ship container at the coast. And if it's that bad in South Africa, I'd imagine it's worse north of the border.

My impression of the business requirements, based on my second hand knowledge and the various other stories people have told me, are:
- You need to know French, Portuguese and English
- You need a few friendly political connections to help deal with red tape and rogue bureacrats
- You need to have enough financial reserve to survive conviscations, delays and to be able to engage in tactical bribing

For what it's worth, I hope this helps.

Post: #12

Friend sold computers in Uganda, after a while he got sick of paying high taxes to the corrupt fucks in the government.

Post: #13

(03-26-2013 01:09 PM)Thomas the Rhymer Wrote:  I'm not a businessman myself (at least not yet), but some second-hand stories I've been given:

- A friend of a friend of mine used to drive from South Africa to the central Africa lakes region in order to buy exotic central African lake fish. Then he'd drive all the way back and sell the fish for a respectable profit. At first he didn't have a passport, so he borrowed his sister's passport and traveled on his sister's passport. When the border guards would bother to check, a small bribe was enough to smooth things over. Most of the border guards are barely paid a living wage and every little friendly 'tip' helps, apparently.

- An east African doctor I met once, who was in South Africa for an extending period for training purposes, apparently owned the first bottled water company in his homeland. He hustled together some shareholders for funding, then spent all his money importing some bottling machines from India into his home country. At that point a politician locked up all his machines at the customs house and demanded an exorbitant bribe to release them - it was so bad, that either he could leave the machines and go broke, or pay the bribe and be even more broke. In the end he just played a waiting game (which made the guys at customs realise that he really was broke) and called in some connections and he was eventually able to get his machines through customs and he started the first local bottled water company. At the time I was interested in building medical training devices and his advice to me was to get the machines from India, because they are much cheaper there.

- A guy I know supplies some shops in Mozambique. The work at the moment is steady, monotonous, and lucrative, as more and more Mozambiquans can now afford to buy goods. He speaks fluent Portuguese and he says as long as you can speak the language you can do business there. If you can't speak the language, you will struggle in Mozambique.

- Guys at the major African air ambulance companies all complain about the Francophone countries, especially Democratic Republic of Congo, that you can't get anything done there without knowing French. An air traffic controller friend of mine has the same complaint whenever they are trying to liase with the airports in that general vicinity. I get a similar impression above, that to do business in the Congo you have to know French. The air ambulance doctors are sometimes sent in with cash in case bribes are required (yes, there have been cases where critically ill air ambulance cases have been refused clearance to take off until a bribe is paid. It's sad to think that someone would be so greedy as to delay the evacuation of a sick person).

- Important medications in South Africa occasionally are not available for months due to delays in moving them through customs (Most South African medications are not made within the country). It's kind of horrifying having to chop and change a patient's treatment because his usual life-saving meds are sitting in a ship container at the coast. And if it's that bad in South Africa, I'd imagine it's worse north of the border.

My impression of the business requirements, based on my second hand knowledge and the various other stories people have told me, are:
- You need to know French, Portuguese and English
- You need a few friendly political connections to help deal with red tape and rogue bureacrats
- You need to have enough financial reserve to survive conviscations, delays and to be able to engage in tactical bribing

For what it's worth, I hope this helps.

Repped, thank you.

I'm glad that French is useful in Africa. Say what you will, but I love the French language and don't want to see it obliterated into obsolescence.

Post: #14

My Mom was buying used car and selling them in Gabon for a while, she told me she always doubled her money but the real issue is the bribing, it is a real pain in the ass.

Thankfully my family is deeply connected and we have family members working at the customs but my mom still had to give something.

The thing is there is no "approximate" price when it comes to bribing;it depends on what you are trying to get into the country, usually the more expensive your stuff is the more they'll make you pay.

As a foreigner I would strongly recommend you to make a deal with someone important at the customs so that your stuff comes out without any trouble, remember the police is not going to be on your side so it's all about making them happy.

Post: #15

(03-27-2013 03:40 PM)le prince perdu Wrote:  My Mom was buying used car and selling them in Gabon for a while, she told me she always doubled her money but the real issue is the bribing, it is a real pain in the ass.

Thankfully my family is deeply connected and we have family members working at the customs but my mom still had to give something.

The thing is there is no "approximate" price when it comes to bribing;it depends on what you are trying to get into the country, usually the more expensive your stuff is the more they'll make you pay.

As a foreigner I would strongly recommend you to make a deal with someone important at the customs so that your stuff comes out without any trouble, remember the police is not going to be on your side so it's all about making them happy.

Hmm that actually gave me an idea...

Post: #16

(03-27-2013 03:40 PM)le prince perdu Wrote:  My Mom was buying used car and selling them in Gabon for a while, she told me she always doubled her money but the real issue is the bribing, it is a real pain in the ass.

You can make good money doing this in Mexico as well. Catch is the cars have to be at least 10 years old, but you'll still double your money on it. I have two friends that used to do it separately. In Mexico I would imagine it being dangerous and having to pay bribes as well. That's the reason one of my friends got out of it was because it was too stressful and the cartels got him for a lot of money one day. After that he was done with it.