Category: eCommerce

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eCommerce Websites Zimbabwe

Zimbabwean Marketplace Series: Idhiri

 

Day 3 was initially supposed to be for Ownai but we’re now going to be talking about Cassava’s marketplace next time. A few minutes ago, I came across this marketplace which seems like it has been operating for a while now but I’d never heard of it. I present you Idhiri, a marketplace website I just discovered. When I discovered it, I just knew I had to write an article on it and here we are now. 

Idhiri

Idhiri seems like it hasn’t been operating for a long time judging by it’s level of popularity and also it’s content. The site just popped up on a google search and who am I to refuse to review something new to me. So I did. 

Design 

This is Idhiri’s most disappointing part, the design. The site’s good and decent to some extent but I just didn’t get those chills I get when I see good design. Starting from the status bar, they’re website has the 2017 experience on it. Especially on mobile. The design is far from modern if you ask me. Scrolling is also not smooth as it feels like it’s hindered by some kind of process which is still loading in the background. Overaly, the design is not bad, it’s just not as modern as I expected it to be. 

Content

As I mentioned earlier, Idhiri doesn’t have that much content as compared to it’s counterparts which might just be one of the reasons holding it down. The site consists of a limited range of products and a few or no services of certain services. This is not Idhiri’s fault though, it’s only influenced by the number of people who are on the site.

Google Pagespeed Insights

Here are the usual, the google pagespeed insights which are surprisingly higher than the othe sites.

Notable features

Not everyone has a bad side, even in terms of websites. Idhiri.com has one specific feature, which I haven’t seen till now. They have multiple types of listings and each listing has it’s corresponding upload steps. Let’s not forget the buy option, with which one can choose to post a listing regarding the item they’re looking for. You can see below:

Conclusion

Idhiri stands out from the crowd with the last mentioned feature. Also with their design which I had some issues with, I can’t say it’s bad though, I’d be lying to myself.

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eCommerce Web hosting Websites Zimbabwe

Zimbabwean Marketplace Series: Tengesai.com

 

Web hosting giant ZimHero brings us Tengesai.com which is going to be our talk for day 2. 

What is Tengesai?

Tengesai is a classifieds platform developed by ZimHero, a popular web hosting platform. Tengesai was launched not long ago but has rapidly grown because of the influence of it’s parent company, ZimHero. We now see Tengesai being a part of the major classifieds and marketplace platforms in Zimbabwe and this is all thanks to ZimHero.

Design

The first thing I’m commenting on is the design. The Tengesai.com design is quite impressive and stands out amongst other marketplace websites here in Zimbabwe. They have a theme colour, a pale shade of green which is very beautiful and unique. Their combination of colours is the most impressive feature of their design, and this site’s design completely overwhelmed me as I was comparing it to others. In terms of mobile usability the site’s great and it’s also responsive, which is also great. We have screenshots taken on both mobile and desktop below.

Desktop version

Notable features

It’s really easy to create an account on Tengesai and it’s also easy to login. No hassle at all. The site also has a limit for listings which I failed to comprehend though. Their banner read:

An account limit has been introduced where you can have up to 5 ads live at any moment. If you need more, you can become premium member to unlock further benefits. To read more about it please visit our FAQ page or contact us. You have currently active 1 listings out of your limit 50 listings (published in 0 days).

 I couldn’t get what they were trying to say here. As the pop-up reads, users can have up to 5 ads live at any moment and then there’s me who currently has 1 active listing out of 50. 

Sellers can also promote their listings, which brings us back to the Pindula concept. One has to pay to be on the front page and also to be featured in WhatsApp groups. 

Tengesai WhatsApp groups

In Tengesai’s case though, you get a badge on your listing and this badge shows that the listing is being promoted. You also get a front page feature on their sponsored section and throughout the website. 

These are the four categories for listing promotion on Tengesai. 

Another notable feature on the Tengesai website is the messaging option as buyers have a chance to chat with sellers in a built-in chat option on the site. Below is a screenshot of my seller profile.

In this screenshot, the chat option is unavailable because it’s my profile and I’m logged into the site so I cannot chat with myself.

Google Pagespeed Insights

It’s now a part of my tradition to feature the Google Pagespeed Insights in every website I review so that I can compare my point of view to that of Google’s. (not literally though)

Here they are. The legendary, extremely long screenshots of the Google Pagespeed page. To clearly see the stats click on the images to view them in full screen mode. 

Content

In this section I don’t have much to say, I might even end up contradicting myself if I talk much. I already mentioned that Tengesai is now one of the biggest classifieds platforms in the country, so I don’t see the need for me to add anything else to that statement.

Conclusion

This is a wonderful ZimHero venture, bravo to the developers. I really liked my experience on the site and loved it’s great UI and colour combinations. It is also reliable in terms of product and service promotion so I positively recommend it.

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Apps eCommerce Websites

Zimbabwean Marketplace Series: Pindula Marketplace

 

The Pindula Marketplace, which is a part of the famous Pindula Group. The Pindula website itself is stocked with a variety of options, they have a news page, a job board, a marketplace and much much more. We just can’t list all that’s available on the Pindula website. 

Design

In terms of design, Pindula killed it. Their website is very responsive and has an easy to use interface. They also upgraded to a modern design a while back although their old one was not bad at all, it was just simple.  The site is also very fast even on slow networks. Here’s the Google Pagespeed test:

 

To see the detailed information, click on the image and zoom in. Below are both desktop and mobile screenshots of the marketplace.

Content

In terms of content. The Pindula Marketplace is stocked with a lot of products and services by multiple shops. Some of the shops are unverified and some are. It’s easy for shops and individuals to upload their services and products on the Pindula Marketplace and they also have a sale feature which you can use to put your products on sale. The feature has a period of sale which you chose for you listing to be on sale for. Let’s go to the verification process.

Verification process

To be verified on the Pindula Marketplace, all you need to do is to upload a picture of you ID card and also a picture of you holding the card. Below are images of the verification process.

Promoted Products

You can also boost your views but promoting your products on Pindula. One view currently costs $50 which means for $5000 you get 100 views on all Pindula platforms and also the TechZim site. For an additional $50 000 RTGS your listing will get posted on all Pindula WhatsApp groups for a day. See for yourself.

Conclusion

It’s a 10. The Pindula Marketplace works quite well for me and I noticed no bugs. They’re also a well known website which means your products and services will reach most parts of Zimbabwe.

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Apps eCommerce Websites

Zimbabwean Marketplace Series: Introduction

 

So I once wrote an article, E-commerce in Zimbabwe: The top 5. This article was only limited to 5 marketplace websites and didn’t give much information on those 5 websites. Because of this I’m conducting a long term review session for these E-commerce platforms. Each day there’s going to be a new marketplace to review for the next 20 days for me. In addition to that I’ll be updating this post everyday, inserting links of the review posts each one by one in their chronological order. So if you have a marketplace you want me to review, feel free to contact me through the contract form on this site. 

List of E-commerce platforms reviewed

  1. Pindula Marketplace
  2. Tengesai
  3. Idhiri
  4. Ownai
  5. Classifieds
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E-creator eCommerce

E-creator diaries: Jiatong caught

We now witness an interesting twist as the E-creator founder who was claimed to have fled with a million dollars gets caught by the ZRP. A week ago, E-creator posted the following statement informing it’s employees what had happened to their money.

After this the company shut down and took down all of it’s online platforms. I for one didn’t believe this story thinking that it was just a method of going away with everyone’s money. Many thought the same, I reckon. However there has been a sudden twist a week later as Zhao Jiatong is arrested by the ZRP. The police statement read:

With that said, what we can all do now is to just wait patiently and see if the guy has the money or not.

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Apps eCommerce Websites Zimbabwe

E-Commerce in Zimbabwe: The Top 5

Online marketplaces have made their impact all across the nation as most who want to sell their products or services run to them. These stores are the best platforms to get your products or services to the whole of Zimbabwe for a very cheap price or even for free. In this article I’m going to list(ungraded) the top 5 marketplaces in ZImbabwe based on my personal touch. 

Facebook Marketplace

This one is not just unique to ZImbabwe only but since we also utilize it here in ZImbabwe, there was no harm in me listing it. 
The Facebook Marketplace only sells products and not services, which it’s greatest weakness but is also a great tool for those selling physical products. It’s greatest pro is that most prospective buyers are already on Facebook which means that the moment they look for something on Facebook they’ll see the seller’s add which increases the seller’s outreach. You can visit the Facebook Marketplace by clicking the Marketplace icon in your app or browser page. If you do not already own a Facebook account, you can sign up on facebook.com.

Pindula Marketplace

Pindula, which is a widely used online platform in Zimbabwe has a wide range of tools they have for you. The most notable features of their site are their blog, marketplace and job board, although they have other sections. The talk of the day, the marketplace is one of the most used marketplaces in the country which is mostly because of Pindula’s widely known name and also their zero-rated site. Yes, the Pindula site can be accessed without an internet connection which gives them an advantage over other marketplaces. The Pindula marketplace has various built-in categories of products and services and they also have a spotlight feature which places an ad for your product or service on most of their pages and also on the TechZim website. You can also get advertised in their fleet of whatsapp groups for a larger amount. One notable feature of the Pindula marketplace is the verified profile option as a seller is verified upon uploading their ID card and also their picture holding it. Click this link to be redirected to the Pindula marketplace page.

Tisitano

I’m sure you’ve come across their ad on platforms running google ads. This was the major reason that made me check it out. Tisitano is an app available on the Google Play Store, I’m not sure about the Apple App Store though. Tisitano supports both products and services and also offers an option for one to create a shop account which is separate from their original account just like the Pindula marketplace(my bad for forgetting to mention this in the Pindula section). This means that I can create a Tisitano account in my name Tinotenda and then create a shop and possibly name it Oliya Carpets. Tisitano also has a point service with which one can top up their account with points for them to be featured on the Tisitano front page. Apart from this everything else is free. You can download the app on the Google Play Store through this link.

Classifieds

These guys have been available for a long time for now. I can’t even remember when was the last time I began to know of this site but it was long ago. Classifieds might probably be the largest marketplace we have here in Zimbabwe. Their interface is very user friendly and so are those of the sites listed above. They also have a wide selection of categories for your products and services. Classifieds also has a featured ad service which is accessible after paying a small amount. Follow this link to access their site. 

Zimpoint

I just couldn’t go without mentioning this impressive emerging platform. ZimPoint is an online market which just joined the community but is already chilling with the big boys. The have both an app and a web interface which they’re constantly updating. The platform also has a WhatsApp group which is open to all members on weekends only for them to post their ads there. You can access their site using this link and download their app using the following button. 

Get it on Google Play

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Apps eCommerce Websites

E-creator shuts down all thanks to Jiatong

 

The sudden shut down of the prominent e-commerce platform E-creator takes the whole of Zimbabwe by storm as many people lose hundreds of United States dollars through the Ponzi scheme. E-creator Zimbabwe rose to fame in March this year as the company was believed to be an easy way to earn money. 

On some point of view, it was but all this was too good to be true. As you might have heard, E-creator had multiple tiers for its employees and each tier had it’s minimum amount of money to be kept in the employees account for them to remain in that tier. In other words, one had to deposit $100 – $500 into their account for them to be in the VIP2 tier and this means that if you withdrew some of your money and was left with $99 you would go back to the VIP1 tier with less commission. So it meant that the more money you have in your account, the more you will earn through commissions. This was E-creator’s best move as people didn’t want to withdraw their investments for their money to grow even more and this led to vast loses for many. I for one wasn’t an E-creator employee and honestly speaking, even though I doubted E-creator’s legitimacy since day one, I almost joined the platform one day but stumbled upon an article by Techzim titled ‘E-creator – this criminal enterprise is running a scam, stay away‘ and so I stayed away.

The Zhao Jiatong story

Everyone in Zimbabwe has probably heard this name by now. Yes, Zhao Jiatong is the E-creator ‘founder’ who allegedly took all of E-creators’ employees’ money. Personally I don’t believe this Jiatong story. As of now, his name was never mentioned by the E-creator team and no-one knew anything about his existence until the point when E-creator issued the following statement.

How can a person deposit 1 million USD into his EcoCash account? This was the first question that came into my mind. I also received answers that my doubts were correct when I read the following article by Techzim:

If we consider the EcoCash story they are spinning, we are left scratching our heads. See, there are transaction limits when using EcoCash USD wallets. One can only send or withdraw a maximum of $500 per transaction and one can only have four such transactions per month. So, you cannot withdraw more than $2,000 per month.
The statement above says Zhao sent ‘company funds’ to his personal EcoCash account and then proceeded to withdraw it. Well, he could not withdraw more than $2,000 a month and so he would have needed over 41 years to withdraw a million dollars.
The statement says he also sent money to EcoCash agents so that they could withdraw on his behalf. The EcoCash transaction limits we talked about affect transfers too. You cannot send more than $2,000 a month.
You know what’s even crazier, you cannot hold more than $20,000 in your EcoCash wallet. This may change in the future but currently, you cannot. So, how could Zhao embezzle a million using EcoCash when it can’t? It’s all a web of lies coming from E-creator.

As it was clearly stated, you need over 41 years to withdraw 1 million dollars. So how did Zhao manage to do it in a few days. E-creator is yet to answer.