Classifieds have been around for a very long time now and they just might be the oldest marketplace we have in the country. The brand has been evolving till it reached the point it is now, the way their logo has been transforming till now says it all.
Content
Classifieds features a lot of amazing content found within different categories. From housing to groceries, they have it all. Their site is packed with content which makes it an ideal marketplace for you to shop.
Dating Platform
This is a classifieds exclusive. I mean we have seen others like Zimjolo try to do it but classifieds really did it, it’s impressive. The dating platform isn’t that famous, and I don’t think it will be because of how we do things here in Zimbabwe but a great thanks to classifieds for trying.
Speed
The site’s got some pretty decent speed for one of it’s size. Personally, I find no problem in the site’s loading speed and the elements load faster than other marketplace websites. Here’s the Google Pagespeed Insights test results:
Conclusion
This is one of the marketplace websites we must utilize completely as Zimbabweans. The site’s safe, fast and fully packed with products to buy from various sellers. One notable feature of the site is the 18+ Dating Platform which has just been introduced.
Exactly 10 days after my last article, I return and we continue our marketplace website series, this being day 4. My apologies for being away for the past 10 days, I was working on my portfolio, tino.co.zw which I’m happy to announce that it’s finally online.
As I promised , day 4 will be about Ownai since I was supposed to write about it on day 3.
Ownai is a Cassava Smarttech startup that has almost everything a Zimbabwean would look for in a marketplace. Yeah I gotta break it to you, I’m impressed. Ownai comes with the normal marketplace look whilst including it’s own features. Let’s dig in deeper.
How you can find them
Ownai has a website, ownai.co.zw and mobile apps for both Android and iOS available on their respective stores.
The UI
Ownai comes with a great and usable UI which has a few notable flaws. Firstly the site takes a lot of time to load, displaying it’s preloader on all of the products on the home screen, which drives away potential impatient customers, which is bad. Even the Google Pagespeed Insights test proved this as the site only got a positive result on SEO, you can see for yourself.
Judging by the results, Ownai has a lot to improve. Upon my first trial to view the site, I came across the annoying preloaders but I had to wait for it to load, although it took a lot of time. For someone who’s used to Netone’s bad reception, I thought it was because of my network but after the Pagespeed Insights results, I became certain it wasn’t because of my network. Here’s the screenshot of the specific section.
Content
It’s perfect. That’s what I can say briefly as Ownai comes with perfectly categorized and grouped content. Which I really loved. Their menu has it all, under the correct categories. They even have a gaming category, where you’ll get some of the most popular PC games for sale. See, it’s perfect!
Conclusion
Ownai has a lot of products available for sale from various sellers too. Their site is perfectly stocked and categorized. The only flaw with Ownai is the time it takes loading, but it’s not really long though. So if you’re looking for a marketplace to sell your products, or to buy something you’re looking for, Ownai is the perfect choice.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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, 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Creating a full website with a custom domain name and taking it online is not a simple task but today I’m going to show you 2 different ways of creating a website which are quite simple. For starters, some words that are going to be mentioned in this article might be new to you or might be confusing but I assure you that after you’ve finished the process, you’ll understandthe jargon. First of all, there are 2 methods as I mentioned earlier are:
Blogger
WordPress
My personal favourite is WordPress and if you have guessed it right, it’s the CMS (Content Management System) I use for blog. Now before we talk about the CMS first we need to talk about the domain name.
Acquiring a domain name
This is the first step of the process and I’m going to walk you through it all. Since it’s about creating a website for free we’re going to be working with free domain names ( .tk .ga .gq .ml .cf ) but for those who are serious you can consider buying yourself a domain ( .co.zw .com .org .net .xyz .org.zw .ac.zw) and if you want to buy any one of these, I recommend Webzim and NivaCity for their cheap services.
Creating a Freenom account
The only free TLD (Top Level Domain) provider so far is Freenom. With Freenom getting a domain name is very easy but the hardest part is your account being able to get a domain. Now, I’ve seen some articles and YouTube videos that claim that if you use a United States address and zip code when registering your account it will work (haven’t tested it though). To create a Freenom account, follow this link to go to a US address generator and use the provided details to register your account on Freenom.
Acquiring a free TLD
Now that you have your Freenom account, go to this page to create your custom domain name. The trick there now is that if you want to use a .gq domain name, in the text box enter your desired custom domain name with it’s extension e.g sqeel.gq and it will automatically have a .gq domain placed in your cart cart. Continue with the checkout till you reach the point where you have finished making your domain name. And now that you now have your domain name, let’s get to the next step, choosing a hosting provider.
Choosing a hosting provider
There are tons of free hosting providers but I recommend InfinityFree and Freehosting. You might be wondering why I chose these two out of many hosting providers across the web. The two are some of the best free hosting providers on the market since they have flexible specs. They offer a reasonable amount of bandwidth and disk space and also have a softalicious app installer. Now you get it. Right?
Freehosting.com
I’m not going to talk about the plan’s overall specs, I’m just going to get straight to the point. Freehosting.com offers you 1GB of storage space and 10GB of bandwidth. The biggest disadvantage of using free hosting providers is that they don’t give you full DNS settings, and so does Freehosting.com. Freehosting.com also gives you the softalicious app installer which is used to install apps like WordPress. However freehosting.com doesn’t let you use a free domain with their service hence the only choice is InfinityFree.
InfinityFree
InfinityFree has a much more flexible UI compared to Freehosting.com and it also has better specs than Freehosting.com. InfinityFree gives you unlimited storage and bandwidth, however they have a few terms and conditions. They also have the softalicious app installer and a few DNS zones just like Freehosting.com. The best part about InfinityFree is that you can create an SSL certificate for your site which makes your site more secure and reliable by your audience (the one which shows a secure icon before the domain name in the address bar).
Had your choice?
If you’ve made up your mind, and you’ve made a choice on which hosting provider to choose, create an account for that provider (click here forInfinityFree and click here for Freehosting.com). To add your domain in either one of the providers, select the custom domain option during registration instead of the sub-domain option. Now to add your domain name to the hosting provider you’re going to receive 2 nameservers which are going to look like this (only for InfinityFree): ns1.epizy.com ns2.epizy.com
Now to insert these nameservers, login to your Freenom account and click ‘My domains’ and then ‘Manage domain’ for your custom domain name. Click ‘edit nameservers’ and click on ‘use custom nameservers’ and add the two nameservers with the first one on top and the second one at the bottom and click Save. You’re now done with adding the nameservers so go back to the registration page for your hosting provider and now add your domain. It might take up to 20 minutes for your domain name to be online and functioning. Hooray, your site is now online and running. Now to add the content we need the CMS I once mentioned earlier.
Blogger CMS
Being the simplest of all, blogger doesn’t have much settings and customisations to do like other Content Management Systems. To create a blogger account, go to blogger.com and create your blog. At this point you’ll have to use a subdomain that ends with .blogspot.com, which you will later change to your custom domain name. To add your custom domain name go to settings in your blogger dashboard and go to ‘custom domain’ now add your custom domain with the www prefix and you’ll get 2 CNAME records which consist of a name and a description. The first CNAME record always has the name www and the destination ghs.google.com but the second one is unique for your domain name. Copy these two CNAME records and login to your hosting account and navigate to the CNAME section and add these two CNAME records. This change can take up to 72 hours so please be patient. After you’ve added your domain, you’ve now successfully integrated your domain with blogger CMS. After integrating your domain name you now have to add a theme to your blog and there are dozens of them acrossthe internet. Now if you’ve chosen your desired template, go to the themes section and click on edit template and then restore and select your theme then it will be automatically uploaded. If the theme fails to install, open the theme in your notepad and copy the whole template by clicking CTRL + C and then click edit HTML in the blogger page and clear the HTML there by clicking CTRL + A then backspace then CTRL + V to paste. And you’re done, your site is now online with a beautiful theme and you can now start writing articles on your blog. Happy Blogging!
WordPress CMS
As I mentioned earlier, WordPress is my favourite CMS and also the one I use for this blog. Now to setup your WordPress account login to your CPanel and go to softalicious app installer. WordPress is always at the top of the list so click on install and select your desired installation parameters and then install your app. When your installation is done, you can go to your website admin dashboard by using the link yourdomainname.domain/wp-admin. Login with your admin details. Now to add a theme to your site go to the themes section then select your desired theme and activate it. You can also customize it depending on your preferences. And you’re done, your site is now online with a beautiful theme and you can now start writing articles on your blog. Happy Blogging!
Many people fancy blogging as a really hard task and also demotivate those with the potential of starting blogs. Sometimes this is because they see most people trying out blogging and then end up failing in a month or two. Failure to run a blog is mostly due to lack of information as beginners and also lack of commitment. Many bloggers give up after receiving a small amount of views or when their site is rejected by Google AdSense. This should not be a reason for one to stop running their site though. Personally when I came into this industry, that’s how it was for me. No views, AdSense denial and stuff but this never brought me down. So to those who want to start new blogs and also those who once failed and want to give it another try, I’ve got an article for ya’ll.
Steps to starting a successful blog:
Use a real domain name with a known TLD( e.g example.com or example.co.zw) instead of using a free subdomain (e.g example.wordpress.com or example.blogspot.com) and a free domain (e.g example.tk)
Optimise your site’s speed. For WordPress users you can do this by using cache plugins and optimisation plugins and also link your blog with CloudFlare CDN.
Create a social media handle for people to know you. I recommend Instagram as it is the fastest to grow on and also the most used locally.
Improve your google search appearance ( you can do this by adding your site to google search console)Share every new post on various social media platforms to market your content. I recommend having many WhatsApp and Facebook groups to have a large audience.
Avoid plagiarism when writing your articles. This is one of the biggest factors that’s stopping many bloggers in their way as most copy and paste other people’s articles on their sites and apart from copyright infringement this has many consequences including losing views.
Don’t rush to get your site on AdSense or Google News, you’ll only be rejected. For AdSense you need at least 60 articles of the same niche to get accepted. Avoid using pop-up ads and those annoying ads where some of them even have NSFW content.
Don’t use slang language when writing your articles, this makes the readers have no zeal when reading your articles and you end up losing audience.
Collaborate with other content creators on social media and produce something great.
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