@Wazuagest, I was once in that line of business but was concentrating on import of vacines and sales but opted out due to import regulations. Main challenge with direct sales business like yours is employee cheating like selling your drugs and restocking immediately so your stock never moves. You may need to fire the current staff to break with the past and start the business afresh. Invest in a good stock system and surprise counts. Ensure all purchases are done with your knowledge.

All the best

@ wazuaguest ... i too once owned such a business

Location is key for any retail outlet; have a self carbonated receipt in triplicate, 1 copy for the customer; 1 copy for you and 1 copy to remian in the book.

Have them in 3 different colours; white / green / pink.

Your copy and that of the customer should never be corrected after initial customer copy is removed.

If far away from business, it pays to keep someone you trust to be the cashier and must give account daily for all transactions done.

All expenses must be clearly explain - do this every evening before going to bed - any issue arising should be immediately addressed.

This way, utawesmake!

Wish you the best.

del

My first business venture.
I did venture into this business and the margins were 10-15% of the total sales

I was located in area with other two major Agrovets,this on paper seemed bad,but they really attracted customers who would find their way to the outlet.

March and April we would do in excess of 1000,000 in sales raking in good profits.Other months we would do 350'000 to 400,000.Business was good.

Challenges,

I was fully committed elsewhere and would spend the whole Saturday there doing reconciliations and observing the sales pattern(lucky enough saturdays were the Peak days)-Retail businesses camp there 24/7 like the Asian guys but the staff will still steal from you if you are away they will steal more.

First challenge came 9 months into the venture,i had integrated an Mpesa in the business,one morning the lady i had employed called to say that she had been stolen 45000 by some Wahindis posing as customers(long story)i closed the Mpesa.I tried deducting the money from her salary but after few months i realised this would make her steal from me.So i lost over 30,000

After one year and around six months the lady employee had created good rapport with the customers and she started tu maringo kidogo as i was over reliant on her.I figured out if she left in a huff it would be a big blow as a person selling in an Agrovet needs good training,so to mitigate this risk i brought in a jamaa for succession purposes and put him in charge of the cash box funny enough the sales went up a bit and the first month the lady became aggressive to the Jamaa but after that things normalised.Unfortunately the Jamaa didnt last long and left around the fifth or the sixth month.-If an an employee is the face of the business you are in trouble

I was back to square one,now i knew the lady was stealing from me,so i tried looking for another guy but i couldnt get the right guy after trying two, i gave up.

One of the big competitor got arrested for selling fake maize seeds he bribed the guys 400,000 and the story died,so basically i was competing in an unlevel palying field.

I reviewed the venture and saw it would be stressing to manage it in the foreseeable future,my only option now was selling the shop which i did for 200,000.

I lost over 200,000 in capital

What i learnt if you are to keep such an Agrovet do it in mashinani where the running costs are very low such that even if the staff steals from you,you still have something left and the exposed capital is minimal.

Do good market research before pouring in your money or start small.

The vets who go to the field and have Agrovets always have a bigger advantage because the always refer farmers back to their shops-So they will edge you out

If you will not employ a qualified Animal health specialist dont sell veterinary products

Good thing it opened my eyes to other stuff which require minimal supervision