This guest article was authored by Prosper Chikomo, an internet entrepreneur and author of Turning Iron into Gold: Golden Opportunities: How to Spot Them, Create Them, Make Money from Them, and How Not to Miss Them (Available on Amazon.com)
A doubtful Zimbabwean-banker asked me the question, “Is Zimbabwe ready for e-commerce? Did you do any market research on this thing?”
I will spare you the other details and why he asked that question, but my answer was a simple but emphatic “Yes”. In fact, online shopping is long overdue! Right now I am only expecting an e-commerce boom in Zimbabwe akin to the dot com boom of the late 1990s. I am convinced beyond repair that Zimbabwe is more than ready because all the signs are there, and here are some of them.
Email usage
The first point of access to e-commerce is email, with or without electronic payments. Email is used to register and open an account on e-commerce websites, send and receive order notifications as well as for customer support services. One does not need to own a cellphone or computer to use email as he/she can use an internet cafe and there are many websites like Yahoo and Gmail that offer free email accounts.
In Zimbabwe, the use of email is huge. To prove this, it is estimated that Zimbabwe’s Facebook population is over 1 million. For one to have a Facebook account, he needs to register using his/her own email address. So, that definitely tells us that Zimbabwe’s email population is more than 1 million, which means there are 1 million email accounts that can be used to open customer accounts on Zimbabwean or external online stores.
Proof of more than readiness for e-commerce
The greatest, and most undeniable proof that Zimbabweans from all walks of life are ready to transact online, sending and receiving money online, and therefore to shop online, was in 2008 at the height of “burning” money. It was the worst of times, and it was the best of times.
If it wasn’t for the government’s exchange controls and the Reserve Bank printing of more Zimbabwean dollars – minting hyperinflation -, no money “burning” would have happened and we would never have proof of the extent to which Zimbabweans could use internet-based payments systems to transact.
For the sake of those reading this from outside Zimbabwe, I shall just explain briefly what happened, and what money “burning” was.
There was hyperinflation and, the Ministry of Finance and The Reserve Bank, instead of letting the Zimbabwean dollar float freely against all foreign currencies, pegged the Zimbabwean dollar to the US dollar, amidst a shortage of foreign currency.
This created a black market for foreign currency where the exchange rate in the black market was higher. Because of the exchange controls, there was a shortage of foreign currency in the official foreign exchange market, and because of hyperinflation, a shortage of local currency existed too.
So, for example, if the official ZWD/USD exchange rate was ZW $5 = US $1, on the black market the exchange rate would be ZW $1,000 =US $1. This drove all foreign currency to the black market.
So, “burning” was when you took your US $1 to someone who had a internet banking account, who would exchange your US dollars for Zimbabwean dollars, and send these Zimbabwean dollars into your account via internet banking (money transfer).
When this money was transferred to your account, it would be way more than the money you could get selling your US $1 to the government at the fixed exchange rate or the Zimbabwean dollars you would get on the black market.
So, through internet banking money transfer, you would get an exchange rate of, say, ZW $20,000 = $1, which you could then withdraw, or use to “burn” other people’s money by writing them cheques for example instead of doing internet money transfers. It was really up to you to also become a “burner”, burning people’s money via internet banking too. It was just about the most viable business in Zimbabwe at the time, apart from dealing in fuel on the black market.
Well, that’s what happens when the governments wants to manage or regulate what must be free-markets.
After years, the government came up with a brilliant and world-class scheme called “dollarization”, which meant that you could now freely use the US dollar to buy local goods, in addition to the Zimbabwe dollar. Technically, you can now use any major foreign currency to buy anything in Zimbabwe. That scheme, as well as the suspension of RTGS, ended money “burning”. (But it can return, with the comeback of the Zimbabwe dollar so long as Zimbabwe does not have massive foreign currency reserves and a strong export sector.)
“Burning” money made many a common Zimbabwean rich. Some even bought cars and houses this way. I overheard a story of someone who bought fridges from one wholesaler, using Zimbabwean dollars, and exported them to a neighbouring country, earning foreign currency, which he then “burned” and bought more stock from the same wholesaler for export. Payments to the wholesaler were made via RTGS. “Burning” money became a full time career and the most viable business in Zimbabwe.
Anyway, back to e-commerce, “burning” would not have succeeded had there not been internet banking. Internet banking, specifically being able to transfer money to another bank account at any bank via the internet (through RTGS – Real Time Gross Settlement), is what made “burning” possible.
Now, RTGS is a national payments system that connects virtually all banks in Zimbabwe and is managed by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe. So we are talking here of a system that is built to be able to handle all transactions within a country, which has to be huge and able to process transactions running into millions if not billions of transactions.
The following year, in 2009, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe would report in the National Payments Systems 2008 Annual Report that in 2008, the RTGS system utilization reached 98%.
2008 was at the height of “burning” money in Zimbabwe,
As I mentioned above, people, ordinary Zimbabweans, many unknown to each other, were “burning” money, transferring money to each other via the internet. Some of course got cheques for their American dollars.
RTGS payments are not done by machines but initiated and completed by people, with software simply reconciling accounts. Banks actually encouraged online banking to avoid long queues in their banking halls since local currency was also scarce due to hyperinflation. That the national RTGS system reached 98% capacity utilization shows the extent to which internet banking and internet-based money transfer was used. The significance of that is that Zimbabweans are more than ready to transact online, which means, even buy online.
It is not possible that the national RTGS capacity utilization would reach 98% capacity through bank staff making RTGS payments on behalf of customers. No, that would not be possible. People, individuals, ordinary Zimbabweans, were making RTGS payments online via their internet banking accounts.
And remember, in 2008 there was no mobile broadband and there were very few internet users in Zimbabwe, with many people using internet cafes to access the internet, yet this was the year when RTGS system capacity utilization reached 98%.
And since the RTGS capacity utilization reached 98%, it shows that those conducting RTGS have previous experience transacting online from the RTGS era.
So clearly, Zimbabweans are more than ready to make online payments and to transact online.
Making payments online and trusting receiving money online
The fact that one transacts/transacted online, even using internet banking, shows that they likely to buy online and are most disposed to buying online. It also shows a trust or confidence that that person has in buying online.
“Burning” ultimately worked on trust. There was no guarantee you would got the money but you would. If there was no trust, it would have failed and not become popular. So, if a website will be trustworthy, it can expect to make some sales, or to at least have some visitors. Trust will be the key in growing Zimbabwean e-commerce.
Rapid adoption and usage of new technologies
In countries that have never really had e-commerce, buying online is exactly the same as adopting a new technology. While at the time of writing there is virtually no Zimbabwean website accepting local payments via a local payment gateway, and there is no local payment gateway processing web-based payments, I expect e-commerce to be adopted very fast in Zimbabwe.
Zimbabweans, generally speaking, rapidly adopt low-cost, sufficiently and properly marketed, useful and relevant technologies. “Burning” was marketed via word of mouth, email, and even SMS but it became known to virtually every Zimbabwean.
I remember researching the phenomenon for my book when I discovered that Zimbabweans in South Africa already knew about burning when many Zimbabweans did not. And they were even aware of prevailing rates by the minute! This was long before the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe decided to suspend the RTGS system.
“Burning” money was useful and relevant in a country where there was, and still is, massive unemployment (over 80% rate). It also helped many people pay bills and even just survive. If a technology is useful and relevant to the needs of the potential users, it will be adopted en masse, same way many people adopted internet banking and internet money transfer.
Mobile technology adoption is another proof of fast adoption of technology in Zimbabwe. Econet Mobile Broadband alone had 1,8 million customers within a year and that is on the mobile broadband front. This same broadband is used to access the internet, meaning it can also be used to access online stores.
On the mobile money transfer side, Kingdom Bank CellCard, launched in December 2010 reached 200 000 accounts within 7 months.
EcoCash, which entered the mobile money transfer market on 30 September 2011 had 416,000 customers within 3 months. It reached 1,5 million users in 8 months, and in some months registering over 200 000 new users per month. This shows a rapid adoption of technology in Zimbabwe. The speed of adoption of EcoCash in Zimbabwe exceeded that of the much referenced M-PESA in Kenya.
As of July 2012, Econet had 270,000 active EcoCash users on its EcoCash platform. Those 270,000 users of EcoCash indicate repeat usage, which shows a viable and sustainable mobile payments/transfer system usage, which can help Zimbabwean e-commerce should Zimbabwean websites accept mobile payments.
According to the RBZ’s January 2012 Monetary Policy Statement, 2.3 million mobile money transfers were registered in Zimbabwe which was a year-on-year growth of 446%. This shows a significant and rapid adoption of a new technology, as well as its usage. Contrast 2.3m mobile money transactions in under 2 years with 4.2m Point of Sale (card swiping) transactions.
The RBZ also reported a 575% rise in mobile payments transactions, which is faster than the growth of transaction numbers. This shows a mobile payments values growth per transaction, meaning that on average, the value of each mobile money transfer transaction in 2011 was higher than in 2010.
2011, was certainly the year of early adopters, who tried the service for the first time, and repeat users.
This clearly shows that Zimbabweans rapidly adopt new technologies that are relevant, low-cost, readily accessible to them, properly and sufficiently marketed, and that serve a purpose. It also shows that Zimbabweans will regularly use relevant, useful, and convenient technologies.
If e-commerce websites will serve a need, be convenient, useful, and even easy to use and be readily and easily accessible, they will certainly be successful just like Facebook is popular with Zimbabweans, because it serves a relevant purpose.
Finally, in August 2011, Opera, the web browser, reported in it’s The State of Mobile Report that in the period between June 2010 and June 2011, Zimbabwe’s page view growth was 4964.8%, while data transferred grew 4483.3%. One of the most important statistics from the Opera report was the average 713 page views per user per month. This clearly hints at the time spent online, which is good for e-commerce. The growth of page views and consumption of internet content has not stopped. In fact, many ISPs in Zimbabweans have reduced their prices for internet access, with some offering unlimited internet, since the Opera report was published.
Estimating the potential and size of the Zimbabwean e-commerce market
It is generally accepted that online retail shopping starts to rise exponentially once it has reached 1% of total retail sales.
In Zimbabwe, even in the absence of a local web-based payment gateway that can be integrated to websites, in 2011 internet banking transactions (banking transactions done via the internet) alone accounted for 30% of total retail values, which is far above the 1% of total retail sales value required for retail e-commerce to rise exponentially. Internet banking transactions values were US$532 million in 2011, valuing the total retail market at US$1,7 billion.
In the US, e-commerce accounts for 4% of total retail revenues. In Zimbabwe 4% of total retail revenues amount to US$68 million dollars at 2011 figures. So we could use that as the size of the total potential market.
In South Africa, a developing country, e-commerce represents just 0.4% of total retail sales. 0.4% of total retail sales in Zimbabwe equal US$6,8 million using 2011 figures. So we could use US$6,8 million as the achievable market.
We can therefore safely put Zimbabwean retail e-commerce potential at between US$6,8 million and US$68 million in the short-to-medium term since the Zimbabwean economy is still recovering.
The US and South Africa have unique characteristics that are uncommon with Zimbabwe. Just as an example, EcoCash was rapidly adopted in Zimbabwe while the adoption of the iconic M-Pesa in South Africa was dismal. EcoCash, which relies on an agent network of sorts would not succeed in the US where credit cards and Paypal are readily available and infrastructure is different.
South Africa and USA also have reasonably higher card densities, whereas Zimbabwe does not. In Africa, mobile is the most promising payment method. So, in my view, if mobile wallets should be enabled for online payments, e-commerce in Africa will really take off to achieve the same levels as the developed world. However, a popular digital wallet or electronic payments system or gateway could also fill the payments means gap. We saw above how RTGS payments were successful beyond disbelief.
Zimbabwe, unlike South Africa and USA also has a strong Diaspora market. Some remittances can be turned into online purchases, while some Zimbabweans in the Diaspora can also buy from Zimbabwean websites. Econet earlier this year estimated Zimbabweans in South Africa alone send ZAR5 billion (US$625 million) to Zimbabwe.
And on top of that, Amazon makes 80% of its revenues outside the US. So we are looking at a situation where Zimbabwean e-commerce sites can make money from the international market as well.
Zimbabwe also has a shortage of cash, which could work in the favour of e-commerce.
Surely all the above hints at a society that is more than ready for e-commerce and online shopping.
On the backdrop of all the above, and a youthful population that is familiar with internet technologies like email and Facebook, and a vibrant diaspora that wants to stay in touch with Zimbabweans back home leading Zimbabweans in Zimbabwe to use the internet, I expect a boom in e-commerce in Zimbabwe should APIs, plugins, and extensions to local payments gateways and payment systems be made accessible to all website developers for free.
The RBZ put the value on total retail transactions in Zimbabwe at US$1,7 billion, while total electronic transactions reached US$34 billion in 2011.
That said, I believe Zimbabwe is more than ready for e-commerce, subject to certain conditions.
Conditions for success
Conditions for e-commerce success include a heavy awareness campaign to teach users how to buy safely online. This way, potential online customers will not lose their money to fraudulent ecommerce sites. It will also help Zimbabweans e-commerce in that fewer fraudulent transactions will be registered with international payment systems, which in turn will avoid the blacklisting of Zimbabwe by major global payments systems, which in itself will affect the long-term viability of ecommerce in Zimbabwe as a higher country-level fraud risk would deter global payments systems from serving Zimbabwe. Nigeria is not served by PayPal for that reason, and many payments systems attach a higher fraud risk to it, not because of perception, but from actual transactions experiences.
Of all conditions, the non-return of the Zimbabwe dollar is a critical factor. If the Zimbabwean dollar is returned, it will result in exchange controls, DEFINITE EXCHANGE CONTROLS LIKE BEFORE. Plus it will make it harder to transact even with foreign countries as currencies will always have to be exchanged and the last time I checked, no country on the planet exchanges Zimbabwean dollars except Zimbabwe itself, let alone global payments systems. Exchange controls and dealing with the exchange rate are the primary reason why PayPal has not taken off in South African e-commerce.
Share
Home
30 comments
I dont think the amount of “burning” during that difficult time can be used as a good indicator of how well Zimbabweans will receive ecommerce. That was driven by a need. It was for survival. People who could HAD to do it. People who couldnt WANTED to.
So the deal breaker is addressing a need. Like the relative success of mobile money.
I concur…whereas it makes for interesting discussion, it’s inadvisable to use as prediction for likely rate of ecommerce adoption. Much like saying, people love getting out of buses through windows, when that only occurred during an emergency.
A suggestion for great talk on this would be possibly to find the problems ecommerce would solve. I don’t want to contest or debate success of Ecocash but it’s numbers are impressive to say the least. However, in daily business, I’m yet to come across any of my peers making use of it, many seem oblivious to it’s “real” value.
The way I expect anyone to sell Ecocash to me is to tell me actual usage I can believe. New registers were/are getting US$1 of free airtime after registering, the real motivation might not be to use it. Big questions: How many people use ecocash per month, how, where, how much money does average user send? Every guy on the street is as clueless, as I would like to think you are, about answers to those questions.
Email usage is irrelevant. I will debate that it’s of not much importance when it comes to giving pointers about ecommerce. Why, it’s not imperative for anyone wanting to transact to have an email address. It’s limited thinking to assume it is, people can use their mobiles now, updates can be done via sms or anyhow. I completely fail to see how this was even touted.
With all that said, thanks for the article. Great to have discussion around changing our industry.
I would like to think that Prosper’s thrust was not on burning per se (though he seemed too eager to explain it in detail), but rather, to explain the fact that, the burning prcess used the internet as an indispensable part of the process (of which online transacting is the issue in the article), and it was adopted like veld fire by all and sundry, thereby depicting the will and ability to do so.
We were commenting specifically on that deduction that since people extensively used technology for burning then it “depicts the will and ability to do so”
Unfortunately, its not such a simple logical implication. People “burnt” using technology because of a NEED to do so to SURVIVE. If there is no need that is being addressed by whatever ecommerce solution you offer, it would be a struggle to make it work.
If you remember, 123 Cell Money was novel, innovative and logically thinking it was bound to succeed. Because over half the population had a cellphone and all cellphones had SMS capabilities, so it had numbers on its side.
BUT, no one used it!
Point is, whatever ecommerce service you offer using these new platforms should address a NEED or WANT. Its not a simple if-then-else relationship
Agreed! the matrix of factors for success of processes and products usually rely on far more than logic alone
Very true. (it was actually called) 121 Cell Money, a CFX product, was simply for loading your sim card with cash and buying in a few retail shops. EcoCash, on the other hand, allowed money transfer to another number. EcoCash was also heavily promoted and had the backing of the Econet brand-power. Honestly, how CFX expected 121 Cell Money to succeed with just that one function, competing against card swiping is something i don’t understand. If you already had a card to swipe, you really had no need getting 121 cell Money. CFX also did not have a huge distribution system/agent network.
Like you said, the key success factors for any product are many and vary. its like the Mpesa exam[ple, where it was a big success in Kenya, but not in SA.
As stated in the article
Burning served a purpose and a need and was relevant and useful and very easy to do.
Amazon.com, kalahari.net and many many e-commerce sites use email for registration, customer support and marketing purposes. They also use email to send marketing communications, for example, that would not be practical to send to a cellphone via sms which only takes a limited number of characters and cannot have pictures.
Email is the most widely used means of authenticating registrations and communicating with e-commerce websites. of course, if someone wants to use snail mail to communicate or send sms, he can do so. Customer support issues where a problem has to be stated in detail cannot be efficiently resolved via sms as a means of communication.
Plus, many Zimbabwean-developed sites are using CMS which all use email for authentication purposes etc. If someone installs a e-commerce plugin/extension, it will still chiefly use email and nothing else.
Of course if one wants to use sms and his customers love it, he can do so.
OMW. I am at loss for words. What a sweeping statement. “many”?
Another big condition for FAILURE that you didnt mention is extortionate charges such as paypal levies on merchants. The last time I checked on their conditions this was a % of the transaction amount. If a payment gateway is introduced with such a charging model I would probably never use it.
Thanks for this article. Been trying to liase with local banks to setup one but was quite shocked by the reponses from some banks. they had the audacity to say thats not possible in Zim and some where actually quite shocked with the possibility of the technology,despite the fact that we always buy on-line using their VISA cards. But why cant they initiate such. 2nd, payment systems like paypal for some reason dont wana transact with Zim. Its not even listed as one of the countries when you wana create an account. I made an enquiry with them and they sited legislative laws in the country. Paynet (a local firm) is trying, but say they havent finished on the product they are promising that will actually interact with local banks and process payments. So Zim is more than ready…we are hungry to put such in place. Thumbs up to Milton Kamwendo who has successfully set up an on-line shop in Zim, but i bet he didnt use a local payment system.
I know what you mean. I have researched online payments in Zimbabwe and enabling e-commerce since about November 2011. I am thinking of writing another article clearly stating out the attitude of the banks and what happened.
Stone-age banks in Zimbabwe hardly help the situation. The problem is that they want to see e-commerce succeed in Zimbabwe first before they can take it up, and how they expect that to happen without them I don’t know. I also think many of them do not have the expertise and just don’t want to admit it and so they just use other explanations as an excuse.
Stone-age Zimbabwean banks only know to charge high transaction fees. Right now all of them tout Western Union and MoneyGram, yet a Zimbabwean can also receive money from abroad via email. They don’t know that. Even Western Union has a system for accepting payments online for companies but if you ask Zimbabwean branches, they dont know about it, and have never heard of it.
I think they would do with retraining of their employees. Once, I walked into a local branch of a reputable bank, they had just introduced VISA. I had a foreign VISA card and the branch had no clue that their own bank can do such stuff.
On top of all these points… the biggest factor why E-Commerce would work in Zimbabwe is the high literacy rate. Education makes folks more progressive and willing to try our new things. The other time I was mortally shocked by my Babamukuru from rural Masvingo describing to me the Fibre rollout from Base Station to Base Station and how it meant they would be able make calls and use Ecocash!
Great article man even though the rtgs model is a bit overated unless if used to show that in the presence of a need, Zimbabweans can adopt technology at a high rate.
we can only hope for this
Zimbabwe has already started on the ecommerce journey. There is a fully functioning website with a payment gateway call: http://www.ebuynowdirect.com
is this site local or overseas. The reason I am asking is related to customs dimension. Coz if its not domestic, you would need to pay customs taxes etc, Please clarify
The site is overseas and their shipping includes Duty. They clearly say it in their delivery policy that Duty is paid. I use them all the time for my IT equipment and they deliver to my door, so I know duty has been fully paid. This is a fully working ecommerce website in Zimbabwe.
Lekker man!
You begin by saying this site is overseas, then finish by saying “this is a fully working ecommerce website in Zimbabwe”, the mind boggles. Anyway, this can’t be viewed as ecommerce in Zimbabwe if the site is located in another country. What’s different from this site & another site in the US, UK, or even Australia, that ships internationally? There are plenty such sites. What is being discussed here is a site hosted in Zimbabwe, selling to local, or international customers.
The RTGS model, in my view is relevant, works like a charm, and is not overrrated.
If a product should have sufficient demand as “burning” using the same channels, it will obviously achieve such levels of transactions.
In the US and many other countries, when someone buys and sells foreign currency, or exchanges one currency for another using the internet as a medium, even internet banking, it is called ONLINE CURRENCY TRADING, and it is a form of e-commerce and one of the many e-commerce markets.
See how folks want to queue up in banks when ATMs are loaded…food for thought
Just to say I contributed two posts regarding what is required for on-line trading to take off. Each time these would appear briefly before disappearing. If these are being deliberately deleted then that’s disappointing(another one I posted under a different name is still viewable, leading me to suspect someone has deleted the posts i’m talking about), as I believe that my contributions carried a lot of weight. I work in the UK in the IT security industry and my main line of work is vetting that on-line vendors have secured their applications against fraud, or basically, we try and make sure there are no holes that bad guys(hackers) would exploit.
Its an area I’m keen to see developing back home, and that my input is viewed as ‘retrogressive’ when its anything but is extremely disappointing. And if thats indeed the case then we have a long way to go before we can implement/embrace new technology in Zimbabwe. It could also explain why some of the posters here have said they seem to have hit brick-walls & have been frustrated when discussing eCommerce with respective stakeholders with attitudes like these. I wish anyone well who’s attempting to spearhead bringing to life eCommerce in Zimbabwe, and I rest my case
Hi @6ed7bc5b070282bab654b85b8adec41d:disqus your comments were not deleted deliberately by anyone, but were incorrectly classified as spam and put in the hold queue by the comment system, hence the ‘immediate disappearing’ soon after posting. They should be showing now.
It could be a number of issues causing this (see
http://help.disqus.com/customer/portal/articles/569646-why-are-my-comments-disappearing- ). We’re sincerely sorry for this. We’re not happy with classification of some of the comments as spam and are working to resolve it. We love comments no matter positive or negative about the article.
You have been whitelisted so this is unlikely to happen to you again.
How can I buy this stuff? From somewhere “Real” ? I do not want to buy from eBay
I have to tell you that it’s hard to find your posts in google,
i found this one on 14 spot, you should build some quality backlinks in order to
rank your webiste, i know how to help you, just search in google – k2 seo tips
[…] http://www.techzim.co.zw/2012/08/zimbabwe-is-more-than-ready-for-e-commerce-and-online-shopping/ […]
[…] for the past three or four years. Why is e-commerce not taking off in Zimbabwe? Haven’t we figured out all aspects related to online trading already, considering our growing internet access and familiarity with […]
[…] Will e-commerce in Zimbabwe ever take flight? That question has never brought out easy responses. In fact, it sounds like rhetoric rather than the starting point of a solid discussion on local businesses thriving in the digital age. […]
[…] As much as the crisis seems likely to herd consumers into buying goods online, there are other factors at play. In the past 5 years, the local e-commerce scene has undergone a number of changes that have prepared it for the emergence of e-commerce services. […]