New Zim and US eCommerce site, KhayaShopping, launches

Without any widely adopted internet payments platform, despite the existence of Vpayments, and some EcoCash internet payment trials, eCommerce in Zimbabwe is struggling to take off. But there are startups that are moving in early regardless, positioning themselves for when the Zimbabwean will rely on the internet to shop. One such early entrant is Khayashopping who launched in recent weeks.

Khayashopping, mostly like the few other Zim eCommerce startups have a focus on giftable items like consumer electronics (phones, tablets, speakers etc…) cosmetics for both men and women, and clothing accessories. The company however is not just a new online outfit; Khayashopping has physical shop in Harare where customers can collect the stuff they buy. In fact, according to the website’s delivery terms, right now customers can only do ‘in-store-pickup’ as courier delivery will only be an option down the road.

In terms of the core of the platform, the website uses the popular Magento open source eCommerce we application. Payment options available are PayPal, manual EcoCash (Econet, please prioritize internet payments; all these startups are begging for it!), as well as the traditional bank deposits and transfers. The site says it supports ZimSwitch but when we tried to buy something, we noticed its not ZimSwitch’s Vpayments; they just probably meant it’s coming in future. Since it’s in-store-pickup, one might as well just go pay cash at the store, which would kinda reduce the site to just a catalogue. One step at a time we guess!

Payment pains notwithstanding, Khayashopping appears to be one of the more serious we’re-not-just-trying-this-out kind of company. How seriously they want to play in the space, and how long they are willing to hold on till internet shopping is habit locally, we just have to wait and see.