The VTU business is amongst the most versatile and lucrative businesses to startup in Nigeria. VTU means ‘virtual top up‘, and it involves vending a range of products and services to customers electronically. It will also require you to have your own VTU website.
These products include: airtime and data on all networks; cable TV subscriptions; electricity bill payments; recharge card selling; WAEC and NECO (exam) pins and much more. If you have been into the business, at a point you will wonder how to create and own a VTU website of your own.
Things You Must Do Before Owning a VTU Website
- You must have comprehensive and up-to-date understanding about how mobile network operators work (MTN, GLO, Airtel, 9mobile in Nigeria for instance). Things like checking data balance, airtime balance, and subscription codes should be well known to you. Regularly checking their official websites for information is strongly recommended.
- You must have a strong internet connection, a solid smartphone and a computer. While you can, get these devices to have the latest software and/or technology.
- Gain a little experience in the VTU business by learning from established vendors, and by selling to customers directly. Lack of experience may cause huge losses.
- Have a well laid out budget. The more features you require, the more money will be involved.
- Have a plan ready for marketing and promotions, once the website is done.
- Get a domain name and rewarding web hosting package; and find yourself a solid web developer.
- You may also decide to create a mobile app version of your VTU site. This would allow smartphone (and tablet) users to have easy access to your services.
- Choose a reasonably-priced website creation platform with high-quality features and plugins. Good examples of such sites include WordPress, Wix, Blogger, GoDaddy, HostGator and Weebly.
- You must also partner with a reliable and responsive payment gateway to process all payments on your site. We have popular payment gateways such as Monnify, Paystack, Interswitch, PayU, Remita and Rave in Nigeria. Check their offerings and choose wisely.
Also Read- How to Transfer & Share Data on all Networks
I hope you now have a clear picture of what’s involved in setting up a VTU business. If so, then it’s good. Let us proceed with the details.
How to Get a VTU Website in Nigeria
Develop Your Own VTU Website From Scratch
To achieve this, you must have skills in web development. Otherwise you need to find a skilled web developer to build your VTU website from the scratch. The latter method is a more expensive way to own a VTU website, and would require a huge sum of capital. It can cost you anywhere from as low as 80,000 to over 300,000 Naira. Keep it in mind that the more features you want, the more expensive it gets.
Buy an Already Made VTU Script and Edit It to Taste
This method also requires a good web developer if you do not possess programming skills. It can cut down the cost required to build a VTU website by a mile. The price slash happens because you have an existing script, and all you need is a web developer to edit certain features to your taste. However, this method poses a big risk. Buying a script from someone means your website is already exposed, and can be easily hacked. Viruses and bugs could have been planted already in that script as well. There is an additional problem of finding a developer who can work on the programming language the script was written in.
Partner With an Existing VTU Site and Own a Portal Under Them
This is probably one of the best options on the table because it has multiple advantages. The company you will own a site under will handle most of the back-end heavy lifting. Your website will be completely secured, and you will spend a considerably small amount of money to get it all done. The trick here is finding a website with ridiculously cheap prices for their API users; and we personally recommend CYBER DATA HUB. To achieve this, simply visit the website:
Sign up, and order your VTU website. It costs about 60,000 Naira.
Creating and owning a VTU website in Nigeria is no easy task irrespective of how you do it. You need to be prepared, plan ahead and be available in order to execute it successfully. By reading through these methods above, we hope you now have a better understanding on how to proceed.
Choose wisely the best method that will suit you, avoid losses at all costs, and good luck out there. We will update this article with more methods that could help you. Don’t forget to subscribe to this site, so you don’t miss an update.
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