200k per day equals 6M per month........ However, these shops are mostly taken up by veteran "exhibition businessmen" who usually do their math very well. Most of them started off from the back where goodwill is low eg 100k and keep moving till they get the front shops. Take a case of someone selling phones on busy moi avenue/to mboya. The guy will comfortably sell 20 phones a day making an average margin of 1500 per phone that equals 30k per day plus acessories and airtime. My friend watu wanafanya biashara. Most of the guys who fail are the ones coming from employment with their golden handshakes and invest in a rush in a business they do not understand. I would personally buy a front shop any day if resources allowed me

Reading through this thread I can see why there are so many " me to" and copy cat businesses. The numbers being thrown around here are now where near the reality in most of this place.

@birdman - 50K per day is around 50 people, 5 people per hour if they work 10 hours from 8-6 paying 1K(20 movies). The other scenarios 100 people, about 10 per hour, paying 500(10 movies) or 200 people per day, or 20 per hour, paying 250(5 movies).

From my observations and this is where i get my bootlegs and I on average spend 800-1200 when I go which is once a month on weekends and I can promise even the busiest of them don't have the numbers to make the 50K per day you suggest.

PS: How did your online movie delivery business work out?

@tony shark I may not be able to give full disclosure but I will try give you an idea.

My movie delivery didn't work out but we started a movie shop in a Nairobi suburb.So far so good...its been 1.5yrs now & that's one of the best decisions I made.

We get our supplies from Moi Avenue & I can confirm to you that there is a group running 2 shops & they sell 2boxes per day(24dvd spindles/day).Now that is a fact.We are talking sales of 60K/day.Do the rest of the math.
It is not only movies,check the shops selling earrings,some are selling worth 100K per day & their expenses are much lower than movie places while margins are very high.

I am an office person,but I run a "streets" business & I respect the people I interact with.Some of those 24-30yr olds on Moi Avenue can embarrass some CEOs.

PS:
Selling 60K is hard but not soooo hard.The 2 stalls we started in Nairobi's outskirts 1.5yrs ago are now doing sales of 15-18K per day.The guys Im talking about on Moi Avenue are our role models.They started this gig 4yrs ago!

@t_shark, since you've been in this for more than a year now, do you mind sharing contact for a guy I can source items like earrings?

I can concur with @solo @bird_man this stalls & exhibitions make some serious cash. Maybe its the simplicity of the business that disguise the profits. I would attest that I have seen several serious machines, 4x4 prado's and VX. I know of a guy a married couple actually, who had a stall dealing in photocopy, tonners, cartridges and phone accessories, at Noor Exhibition opposite Diplomat Hotel. Between ukwala supermarket and the barclays ATM at Tom Mboya street. After 2 years of operation they have opened up a stall at bruce house ground floor. Ain't that a business expansion? More so if you look at the amount of people traffic in this streets, it amazing and all of them want to buy something. So really i think there is some serious cash here.