Leather Skin Trade Business Plan

Leather Skin Trade Business Plan

Leather Skin Trade Business Plan Overview

This Leather Skin Trade Business Plan which is the first in the series quickly looks at the buying and selling of skins. This is more like a broker: buying from aggregators, and selling to tanneries. Aggregators here mean traders who buy skins from individuals who slaughter animals either on a private or commercial level. The aggregator then collects and put them in a central place say a warehouse or a store of sorts for onward sale to other traders nay brokers who then sell to the tanneries.

The Hides and Skins Value Chain

Hides are from cows while skins are from goats and sheep. Though we will mention a little bit about hides this particular Leather Skin Trade Business Plan is biased towards buying and selling skins.

In a nutshell raw hides and skins are processed by tanneries to make leather, and in turn leather is used by manufacturers to make such products as shoes, handbags, coats, soles, wallets and such other products. So in general the key participants in the leather business are:

• Animal herders
• Individual slaughters, commercial slaughter houses and abattoirs
• Aggregators who buy hides and skins from those slaughtering at an individual level or slaughterhouses
• Traders who buy from aggregators and sell to tanneries
• Tanneries who process the hides and skins to leather
• Manufacturers who buy the processed skin and use to make items such as shoes and handbags,
• Shops which buy items from the manufactures and sell to consumers

To insist the above is just a general picture of the leather business, were we to go to specifics and list the major and minor participants, then you would appreciate how creased it is. There are brokers, wholesalers and some sort of other gatekeepers at every level of the chain. For instance it’s normal before the raw hides and skins get to the tannery to have passed through several traders each buying from another until eventually it gets to the tannery. Same with leather and the finished products.

Tanneries don’t always sell finished leather some sell semi processed leather to brokers and agents who sell to manufacturers in Europe and Asia. Other tanneries make finished products, while others don’t actually buy any skins rather they are just contract tanneries: if you have hides and skins you want to process to leather you take to them, they process and give you your leather or semi processed skin as per your agreement. Basically such tanneries are machines, labour and skills for hire. Just as an aside such tanneries are especially popular with some Chinese who are involved in the leather business in Kenya; they come buy the skins, take to the contract tanneries, who semi or full process. The Chinese then export the leather to their country.

Animal owners sell their herds to animal traders who then take the animals to markets. From the markets another group of traders will buy and take to slaughterhouses, or bars and hotels. At times individuals will buy the animals for their own consumption; they slaughter the animals in their “backyards”, especially in the rural areas.

This Leather Skin Trade Business Plan focuses on being a trader who buys from collectors / aggregators and then sells to tanneries. 

Download Leather Skin Trade Business Plan / guide here