Nigeria is one of the countries in West Africa. Nigeria is found in the Tropics where the climate is seasonally damp and very humid. This climate is influenced by the monsoons originating from the South Atlantic Ocean, which is brought into the country by the (maritime tropical) MT airmass, a warm moist sea to land seasonal wind.
Its warmth and high humidity gives it a strong tendency to produce an abundance of rain. The rainy season in Nigeria typically starts from March and ends between October and November depending on the state in question. It should be noted that the duration of the rainy season differs in North, South and East.
In the north, it lasts only four months, that is from June to September; in the south, it goes from March to October; and finally in the south-east, which is the wettest area of all, it goes from March to November and even encroaches into December sometimes.
The long periods of rain experienced in the country has created several peculiar business niches. A savvy business person can take advantage of the cold and exceeding wetness to start a profitable business for him or herself. With the rains almost at the corner, here are 50 profitable businesses you can start and make good profits from while others are still looking for a way to keep warm.
50 Best Small Business ideas for Rainy Season in Nigeria
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Pest Control
Rainy season is usually the perfect season for pest and insect proliferation. The damp environment provides a suitable breeding ground for pests of different kinds like ants, flies, cockroaches, bag worms etc. You can start a pest control service in a rainy season and sell this business to homes and businesses.
You must have the right skill and knowledge about the different types of pests and the procedures for controlling them before you can make head way in this business. Note also that your pest control chemicals and methods must be effective else you would have a problem getting customers, because Nigerians are good at informing their neighbours of an ineffective service, and they would encourage everyone else to boycott your services.
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Rainwater Harvesting
The rainy season is a really good time to harvest rain water. With a lot of communities finding it difficult to access drinking water and water to carry out other activities in the home, harvested rainwater is their only source of water for when the rains stop in the dry season.
Rainwater harvesting is one of the most effective methods of water management and conservation. You can earn huge income by providing this service to homeowners, land owners and also industry owners. This service can be in form of digging water storage tanks and setting up the equipment.
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Snail Farming
Snails are known to be very active in the rainy season and that is when they are mostly harvested in the wild in Nigeria. But you can take it a step further by starting a snail farm. Snail farming is the process of raising land snails specifically for human consumption. The mollusks on their own are very loved by Nigerians because of their delicious meat. Snails are also considered as a healthy source of nutrition. Growing and selling snails is the perfect rainy season business you can start from home.
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Start selling umbrellas
Whether it is raining or not, Nigerians are always on the move, and as such they require a shield from the rain. This makes the demand for umbrellas to skyrocket in the rainy season. As an entrepreneur, you can start selling umbrellas for profit.
You can procure the product from renowned manufacturers while you just focus on marketing them. To further take advantage of the market, you can stock and sell kiddies and teen umbrellas. If you are quite talented, you can equally offer umbrella repair services in your store in addition with marketing your umbrellas.
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Selling of Seeds for planting
The planting season officially kicks off when the rains come and farmers would then start looking for viable seedlings for planting. You should start sourcing for and selling pest and disease resistant seedlings. If you market your business well, you would surely get good patronage because farmers are always seeking good pest and disease resistant seedlings for planting.
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Mobile Coffee cafe
Rains come with cold and one of the ways to withstand the cold is through drinking hot coffee. You can either open a shop where you make hot coffee for warmth seekers or you can choose to retail various blends and flavours of the brew.
Alternatively, you can start a a mobile coffee cart where you get to prepare coffee for people on the go. You can also stock various snacks as accompaniment to diversify your business and create a niche for yourself since the mobile coffee business is quite popular in Nigeria.
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Corn Farming
Corn is one crop that gets planted with the first rains in Nigeria, and it is known that maize is a very popular grain consumed in the country. Globally, maize is known as the queen of cereals because it has the highest genetic yield potential among the cereals. You can start a corn plantation utilizing modern technology and quality seeds. After harvesting, you can prepare your crops for export, or you can harvest, process and sell them off in bags locally.
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Fish Hatchery
The rainy season is the normal breeding period for fish, and because of this, you can start a fish breeding service where you can help fish farms hatch fingerlings. A fish hatchery is a place for artificial breeding, hatching, and rearing through the early life stage of finfish and shellfish in particular.
Hatcheries produce larval and juvenile fish primarily to support the aquaculture industry where they are transferred to on-growing systems. If you are contemplating on starting a fish hatching business, then the rainy season is the best time for it.
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Start a lawn care business
The rains bring water, and the water brings life. This is why grasses do grow exceedingly fast during the rainy season. One lucrative business idea that can benefit just about anyone is to start a lawn care business. Here, you get to help busy or lazy home owners to trim their grasses and hedges.
In order to make your work easy and efficient, you should endavour to invest in a good quality lawn mower and a pair of garden shears. You equally need to effectively market your business so that people can know about your services because a lot of Nigerians, especially those in big cities are always on the lookout for this service.
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Mobile Car Wash
Running a mobile car wash business is a smart way to make a lot of money without taking much risk of capital investment. The business also eliminates the requirement for a business location. You can easily knock on houses and offer to wash cars for a token.
With cars easily getting dirty in the rains due to the many muddy potholes on Nigerian roads, your services would be easily accepted. You can target busy executives who have not time to wash their cars every morning and arrive early enough to do it for them before they go to work.
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Mushroom Farming
The rainy season in Nigeria is also the season for mushrooms. These edible fungi grow on their own in damp surfaces in the bushes and people go there to harvest them either to eat or sell. As an entrepreneur, you can start farming mushrooms in large quantities for distribution. This is one business that is practiced by just very few people in the country and you can also make good income from this market.
A mushroom farming business has the potentials of yielding big profit in just a few weeks of startup, and the business can be started with considerably low startup capital investment. You just need to get the mushroom spores, prepare the land, spray your spores and then go to bed.
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Raincoat Selling
Raincoat is a very essential item in the rainy season, and people use the raincoats to protect their clothes from wetness. If you cannot make them, you can buy raincoats on wholesale basis and start retailing them in your locality. If your store is a very conspicuous location, you would sure make good sales.
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Start a mobile food vending business
A lot of busy executives are familiar with the scenario of where they are hungry but they cannot afford to leave their offices due to the heavy rains. You can take advantage of this discomfort to start your own mobile food vending business.
You should prepare your meals, and instead of selling them at a location, you package them very well and start taking them from one office to the next. To be successful in this business, you have to ensure that your meals are very tasty and hygienically made and packaged. You can take the food to them in their offices or shops with your cart or truck or even your car.
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Sell Rubber Boots
It is a fact that a lot of roads and even houses in Nigeria do get muddy and flooded during the rains, and because of this, people need something extra to protect their feet. You can start retailing rubber boots of all colours and sizes. This business would never lack patronage because of the terrible conditions of roads especially for pedestrians. You can go to the city of Aba in Abia State where you can get these items very cheap and sell in your own city for profit.
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Start a private pick up service
A private car pick up service is one business that would thrive in Nigeria in the rainy season because people always get stranded during the rains. If you have a functional vehicle, you can put it to good use by picking and dropping people in their homes during the rains. This business is very good because you get to fix your own prices and desperate commuters would always pay as long as can you take them home.
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Start selling tarpaulins
It is a fact that a lot of people sell their wares on the roadside without protection from the elements. When the rains come, they sometimes get lost on what to do. You can start selling tarpaulins to these traders which they can use to protect their goods. You can also sell car tarpaulin covers to use to protect cars.
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Cold weather Apparels and Accessories
People always need to cover up more securely because of the cold that comes with the rain. You can start up a cold-weather apparel store and sell items such as sweaters, thick socks, shower caps, rain coats, boots etc. You can purchase the products in large quantities and sell to retail fashion shops and corporate offices. You as well hire sales canvassers or representatives and pay them on a commission basis.
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Roadside snacks
In the raining season, snacks and foods like roasted corn, beef barbeque (suya), cooked groundnuts and cooked corn are always in demand because people are definitely going to be stuck in traffic for long hours because of the rains and poor roads.
Drivers, passersby and pedestrians would always want to buy hot snacks to heat up their bodies and quell their hunger. Your marketing should be targeted at densely populated areas or streets with big pot holes that could delay traffic. To further your gains, you can sell cooked corn in the morning and sell roasted ones in the evening.
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Make and Sell chemical treated Mosquito Nets
Mosquitoes are one of the insects that breed so much during the rainy season because of stagnant water. In order to keep people away from the pesky mosquitoes that spread malaria, you can start selling treated mosquito nets. If you know the chemical composition used in making the treated nets, you can make your own, but if you don’t, you can still buy the nets from the manufacturers and retail them.
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Yam planting and sales
Yam is one of the staple foods in Nigeria and the rains are a good time to start planting yams. Recently, Nigeria started exporting yams, so you start a commercial yam farm that is targeted towards the export market. You can also make lots of profit if you just sell your yams to local consumers.
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Start a Gutter cleaning service
Gutters are usually worst hit during the rains as flood waters carry assorted debris into the gutters and block them thus preventing the free flow of water. You can start making money by offering the service of gutter cleaning.
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Water Pumping Machine Rental business
Many houses, homes, compounds and streets do get flooded during the rainy period. If you own a water pumping machine, you could use it to start a lucrative business where you hire them out to people that need to clear their flooded area and send the waters to the gutters. In addition to hiring the pumping machine, you can offer to operate the pumps by yourself and help clean out their houses for additional pay.
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You can start a car wash business
Cars would frequently get dirty during the rainy season because of much splashes of mud from potholes and bad roads. You will make cool money in the rainy period with this business.
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Repair potholes
Potholes are always a big issue in Nigeria during the rains as the poorly constructed roads always get to develop potholes. You can start up a mini road construction business repairing pot holes. Depending on cash at hand, you can use asphalt to mend the roads or just do a temporary work with just bricks. You can set up a mini toll gate to recover your expenses and commuters would gladly pay for the convenience of having motorable roads.
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Produce shower Caps for Ladies
It is a fact that a beautifully coiffed hair gets easily damaged by the rain so ladies are always on the lookout for how to protect their expensively made hair. You can start producing durable water-resistant shower caps, and you can start this business on very low capital.
You just need to by some yards of plastic materials which can be clear, opaque or semi-transparent and have pretty designs on them. Measure the distance within the head where the shower cap is expected to rest and sew away. Marketing is your key to making a success out of this business.
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Establish an NGO for Relief Services for flood victims
A lot of areas are prone to flooding in Nigeria during the rainy season and a lot of people have been displaced because of this phenomenon. You can start an NGO that can help bring succor to poor displaced people. You can source for funds from international communities to provide the victims temporary accommodation and feeding pending when they can go back to their homes. You can also educate Nigerians on the methods to use in preventing flood occurrences in their regions.
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Produce agricultural products for export
Local agro products like kola nut, banana, cocoa, chili pepper, okro, shea butter, and melon products have gained acceptance in the international community. You can take advantage of the rainy season to cultivate these products chiefly for export.
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Make Mosquito Repellant Lotions
Mosquitoes are a huge nuisance during the rainy season. In order to take advantage of the proliferation of these disease bearing insects, you can start producing mosquito repellent creams. If you are a bio-chemist or someone in a related field, you can start producing these creams and distributing them to users. These creams as the name implies do prevent mosquitoes for biting and drawing blood from its victims and thus transmitting malaria to them.
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Plant and sell vegetables
With the abundance of rains, what better business is there to start than growing vegetables? Vegetables tend to grow quickly during the raining season, so you can make good profits from selling your varieties of vegetables within the duration of the season.
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Sell bean cakes
Bean cake is a breakfast staple in Nigeria, and a piping hot bean cake with pap or tea would make an excellent breakfast or dinner during the wet season. The good aspect of this business is that it can be started with little capital while it has the potential of yielding huge profits in a short while. You can diversify by making door to door supplies of your cakes.
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Ferry people across water logged areas
Nigeria usually has problem with flooding during the heart of the rainy season. If you live in a flood prone area, you can make a business out of this situation by ferrying people across flooded areas. You can use a small boat if you have one or you can as well rent one.
If you are strong enough, you can equally use your back as the means of transportation. Trust me, people have been doing this business and have been making huge gains out of it, and the best part is that there is no startup capital involved.
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Tent Hire Business
Rain or no rain, celebrations must go on in Nigeria, which is why starting a tent hiring business would prove quite profitable in Nigeria because a lot of people having outdoor event would be most willing to hire your tents for their events.
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Tea Café
What do you need to do to succeed in this business? Simply make your tea joint look neat and attractive. Offer a variety of beverages and snacks and ensure there is excellent customer service.
During the rainy season, customers, including commercial vehicle drivers and office workers, congregate at stalls serving breakfast to take tea, bread and fried eggs, as well as other beverages to maintain body temperatures after which they then return to work. You can make available extra spices like ginger and garlic for customers who prefer their tea to be spiced to make the tea hotter than the normal beverage drink.
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Herbs and Flower Farming/Gardening
Flowers survive better during the rainy season. Plants are the basis for all landscapes, homes, gardens and even for brightening offices. You may have to pay small amounts for premium packets of seeds but you can always recover your capital when you start selling the starter plants.
The more space you have, the better you will be at it. If you have the space in your landscape and outdoor garden, you can create gardens where you will grow the plants. You can sell your flowers as fresh or dried flowers to retailers, wholesalers, and even flower shops. Marketing for this business should be centered mostly in big Nigerian cities.
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Start a pepper soup joint
Pepper soup is one delectable hot soup Nigerians love to relax with at the end of a stressful work day. The high pepper, herb and spice content of this soup make it ideal to ward off the cold. If you are knowledgeable about preparing this soup, you can open a pepper soup joint in a very visible area and you would enjoy great patronage. You can also stock varieties of drinks and other types of local delicacies like asun, nkwobi, grilled fish, suya etc. to appeal to various palates.
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Manufacture rubber or nylon bags
Water and dampness also wreak havoc on leather bags. You can start manufacturing and selling rubber or plastic bags that people can use while the rainy season lasts in order to protect their more expensive bags. You can also produce plastic phone pouches and rubber bags that can be used to secure other bags in case you get caught up by the rain.
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Shoe shine and mending business
Shoes are another item that gets hit during the rains. Being that rains get shoes messy and muddy, you can set up a business where you get to polish and wash shoes for people. You should always have handy detergent solutions and napkins in preparation for such jobs, as they most times come with a higher pay.
You equally get to charge higher for polishing depending on the kind of shoe polish you use (water resistant or liquid polish). You can equally add mending of shoes to your services as this would likely net you your major income.
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Alcoholic herbal mixture
Another business sees a lot of profits from this season is alcoholic herbal mixing. Though some people see these products as constituting a nuisance because of the attitude of the patrons, but the fact that it creates jobs for people at the lower rung of societal ladder can’t be denied.
In order to avoid being stereotyped, you can start a neat and standard business that would only welcome well dressed and well-mannered patrons. These drinks help people keep warm during the cold season.
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Sell Windscreen Wiper Blades
Do not be in a hurry to conclude that individuals who have their own cars may not be on the list of your target audience during this season. As a matter of fact, they may need you more than those without cars. Windscreen wiper blades are not often put to use when there is no rain.
This factor may make some blades that have become exposed to the heat of the sun gets stiffened. When the rain starts and they are now needed, they do not wipe off the water and the steam effectively.
Thus, a driver who doesn’t want to experience clouded vision will be compelled to change his or her wiper blades. Some negligent motorists, whose blades have become damaged may not replace it until it starts to rain. Such ones are willing to do anything to get wiper blades for their cars.
As part of your strategy towards selling as much wiper blades as possible, you may not have to wait till it starts raining. Approaching transportation and logistics companies with a lot of vehicles and stressing the need for them to change their wiper blades in order to prevent accidents may be more fruitful than you can imagine.
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Sell Dispensers, Heaters, Electric Kettles
As observed, people tend to get cold during the rainy season. After defying the weather and getting to their various destinations, they fight off the cold through various means. One of such is by taking coffee and other hot chocolate beverages. Sometimes, offices do not have functioning water dispensers. You can make it a point of duty to approach organizations ahead of time with a proposal of supplying them with dispensers.
Of course, there are SMEs on budgets that cannot afford dispensers; these ones should be given the option of getting electric kettles and other cheaper forms of electric water heaters. The level of profit to be recorded is relative to the number of organizations and individuals you are able to convince to patronize you
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Vehicle cover
Cars and motor cycles are expensive. Owners will definitely use vehicle covers to protect their cars against the damaging effects of the weather. Vehicle owners should be your perfect target market for this product. To make good profits, you need to look for a cheaper way to procure your products and then sell them off with some mark-up.
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Roof repair services
The intense heat from the sun tends to damage roofs during the dry season, and during the rains, the roofs start leaking. The major cause of this problem is using poor quality roofing sheets while building. As a carpenter or one in a related line of business, you can offer your services as a roof mender or repairer. You can as well bid for contracts to replace damaged roofs, but this business would be carried out during the dry season to prevent the rain damaging properties in the house.
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Plumbing services
Drains easily get damaged during the rains. If you are a plumber, you can write your number and the services you provide on a board and fix it in an area that would be conspicuous to all. This is a very easy method of publicity and very soon, you can start getting calls for your services.
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Towing Services
It is no secret that most cars develop problems during this season either from incidents while driving or stalling on the highway. This is where your service as a vehicle towing service would come in. The good thing about this business is that you can earn all year round without depending on just the rainy season to offer your services.
You need to ensure that people are aware of your business, by ensuring that you have a functional website, cell phone and distribute your fliers and business cards. You would need to get a solid truck that should be able to tow heavy vehicles too so that you can offer your services to a wide variety of customers.
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Start a fish farm
Fish farms typically thrive during the rains and as such this is the perfect time to start such a farm especially one that is done in a river or sea. If you live in an area that has a water body, you can enter the water, demarcate it and start raising your fish. It should be noted that fish raised this way has higher maturation rate. If you are not able to do this, you can build or buy tanks and start raising your fish in them.
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Start shrimp, crayfish and periwinkle harvesting
In some states in Nigeria, especially those situated near water bodies, it is a common phenomenon to harvest shrimps and periwinkles easily during the rains. In fact, most times people go to their waterlogged farms and meet these fresh water crustaceans lying all around. You can key into this business and start harvesting periwinkles, shrimps and crayfish for sell. To make more profits, you can export your produce to states where these animals are scarce.
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Start an indoor football viewing center
Sports is life for most people and this set of people cannot do without watching their favorite sports clubs play. Since the rains would not allow one to hold such an activity outdoor, you can start an indoor football viewing center to keep people warm and dry while they watch their favorite teams play. You can charge an admission fee, or you can require your patrons to buy drinks from your bar as a requirement to watch the match in a comfortable environment.
48. Flood restoration service
Floods wreak havoc in homes and this is caused by streams, rivers and seas that overflow their banks during the peak of the rains, and as well as by blocked drainages. Certain cities in Nigeria are worst hit by this like Lekki in Lagos that is situated near the sea.
You can start a flood restoration service where you get to clean out, dry out and restore homes after a major flooding event. For you to make headway in this business, you have to have an impeccable reputation so that people can trust you with their homes. This business requires just medium startup capital because you would need to acquire a water pumping machine, a dryer, cleaning chemicals and other equipment.
49. Retail coal
A lot of households in Nigeria, especially those in the rural areas use firewood in cooking. Because of the excessive rains during the rainy season, the bushes are always wet and they can hardly find wood dry enough to cook with. You can start selling coal as an alternative for firewood. You can as well manufacture and sell coal stoves so that these people can entirely stop using firewood.
50. Cultivate and process cassava
Cassava just like some other crops is cultivated in Nigeria with the first rains. In fact, it is one of the most important food crops in the humid tropics. Cassava is made up of starch, which is one of the most important products synthesized by plants.
It is consumed as food and used in industrial processes. Starch is a multi-billion dollar business worldwide and it is finding application in several industries. Cassava starch can perform most industrial functions just like maize, rice and wheat, and even better.
Cassava starch is used as an additive in cement to improve the setting time, it is used to improve the viscosity of drilling muds in oil wells, it is also used to seal the walls of bore holes and prevent fluid loss. Starch is also the main raw material in glue and adhesive industries. With cassava performing these and numerous other functions, a savvy entrepreneur would do well to go into this business.