How to start a mobile shop business in Pakistan

Short answer: a mobile shop in Pakistan earns from four things: new phones (small margin, big money), accessories (good margin), repairs (best margin, needs a skilled hand), and easyload and bill payments (small but daily). Start with accessories and easyload, add repairs if you have a technician, and keep the IMEI and the seller's CNIC for every phone you buy, especially used ones.

1. Decide what kind of shop

• Accessories and easyload: least money to start, quick sales, low risk.
• New phones: large stock value, thin margin, and prices change often. Buy from authorised distributors and keep the box and warranty card.
• Used phones: good margin, but the biggest risk. A stolen phone in your shop is a police case.
• Repairs: needs a trained technician and parts, but the margin on labour is high and repair customers come back.

Most successful shops do accessories plus one of the others well.

2. Location

Near colleges, bus stops, and busy markets. Look at what the shops around you already do: a street with five repair shops may still need a good accessories shop.

3. First stock

For accessories, start with what breaks or gets lost: chargers and cables for the common phones, handsfree, covers and glass protectors for the popular models, power banks, memory cards. Buy small quantities of many models rather than many of one. Wholesale markets in big cities (for example Hall Road in Lahore and Saddar in Karachi) are where most shops buy; compare at least two wholesalers.

4. PTA and IMEI: protect yourself

Phones need to be PTA-approved to work on Pakistani networks. Before you buy or sell any phone:

• check its IMEI on the PTA system (DIRBS) to see that it is approved;
• for a used phone, take the seller's CNIC copy, mobile number and a signed note, and write the IMEI in your register.

If a phone you bought turns out to be stolen, these records show you bought it honestly.

5. Repairs, warranty and advances

Give every repair a slip with the job number, the fault, the advance taken and the promised date. For phones still under warranty, note when you send them to the company or service centre and the claim number, and tell the customer when it is back. Unclaimed phones and lost slips are where repair shops lose money and customers.

6. Qist (installments)

Selling phones on monthly installments brings customers who cannot pay at once, but only with a guarantor, a written schedule and reminders before each due date.

7. Keep the records simple

You need: the IMEI of every phone bought and sold, repair jobs with their status, accessories stock, easyload commission, and udhaar. Mobile shop software keeps all of this in one place: IMEI search, repair slips, warranty claims sent to the company and back, used phones with the seller's CNIC, and qist with reminders.

Start free and set up your mobile shop with IMEI tracking from the first phone.