How to easily start a business in town without the hustle of renting a shop and paying for licenses
It is the desire for any business person to rent a shop and set their business at a strategic location in town. But challenges and hustles of looking for a shop at a strategic location pushes many out of the process and their business idea never materialize.
Business people are always in competition to make more sales and get access to as many customers as possible. This competition has led to the rise in cost of starting up a business as everyone is looking for a strategic location. And now the biggest for hurdle for startups is to get an affordable space to set your shop.
Shops that are strategically located are super expensive and startups find these un affordable making their business journey a nightmare.
Apart from the initial cost of renting a shop, the cost of business permits and licenses are becoming more and more expensive each year as counties push their boundaries to collect more taxes from businesses.
That said and done, you will need someone to assist you run your business. This comes with an extra cost as you will have to foot their monthly salaries and cater for their well-being as well.
These are challenges in the business market that have led to the birth of an emerging trend of Rent a Shelf business concept. This model of starting and running a business is giving startups opportunities to start and run their businesses with ease.
With Its origin traced to Nairobi town, rent a shelf business concept is first spreading to various towns and most likely it is available in a town near you.
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So, how does rent a shelf business model work?
To answer this question we may need to go back to the genesis. A group of young men were looking for a rental space to start their business within Nairobi, they were surprised by how expensive the shops were to acquire. Apart from the high rental fees demanded, landlords would demand good will fee and rental a deposit of between 3-6 months. All these initial charges amounting to a million plus.
This was a shocker to them and eventually they could not raise such amount. They wondered how many people were being locked out in the business market due to the high costs associated with renting a shop.
But these were not the only costs, apart from paying for the initial fees to secure the shop, you still had the burden of partitioning and shelving your shop to suit your needs and preferences.
From this encounter they set on journey to look for funds and help other people start business without having to spend a lot. That’s how Notify Logistics Company was started.
The company acquires a business space and then rents shelves to small business people.
With rent a shelf, small businesses do not need to rent the whole shop. What you only need is a shelf to display your products and someone handles all the sales for you.
The shelves goes for between Khs.3,000 to ksh.2,000 per month and the good thing is you do not need to pay any deposit. The company also caters for all the licensing and also assists in marketing your products online.
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While customers can walk in and buy from your shelf directly, they have also have partnered with riders who makes sure your orders can be delivered to clients who order online directly.
You also have the freedom to direct your clients to your shelf where they can pick products you are selling.
While the shelf is small and might not accommodate all the products you are selling, you only need to display a sample of your products and the rest can be kept in their store room.
You also have the option of making direct deliveries on orders placed by your clients if your products are not in their stores.
With this type of business model, it is no secret that small businesses will have an opportunity to flourish and compete equally with established ones.
Other companies have replicated the same idea among them i-shelf thus giving more businesses an opportunity to make a choice.
