Without a doubt the internet is surely disrupting our traditional systems. We’ve been talking quite a bit about this as we prepare for our upcoming Broadband Economy Conference where these and other related topics will be discussed in full to help businesses leverage on this disruption rather than be booted out by it. See, the internet can either work for or against you; of which the latter is inevitable if you remain passive or incognisant of this fact.
Anyway, we realise that e-items (of course I just made that up) have been on the rise of late in Zimbabwe, with more e-commerce and e-learning platforms being created (and we’ve written about some). Recently, Choppies Zimbabwe partnered with a UK based independent click and collect platform known as Kamelee. Though Kamelee is a UK based platform, it is supported by the local classifieds company: Variable Solutions.
A ‘click and collect platform’ as the name suggests, is a platform where you can do your online shopping, but instead of having the goods delivered to you, you or someone would have to go and collect them from the shop itself.
The partnership was created with African expatriates in mind. Basically, people in the diaspora can buy groceries for their families or friends who are based here locally using their credit or debit cards. However, this doesn’t mean locals cannot leverage on this development.
It will obviously be more expensive do to use this method of shopping but then again it just depends on how much one values their time. Considering that one can create an account (if they will) on the platform, my assumption would be that it takes note of their ‘favourites’ or stores their cart history hence making it available for them whenever they log onto to the site for some shopping. If my assumption is correct, then this means a significant amount of time and energy spent on shopping can be cut out thus making this a more ideal way of shopping particularly for busy people or for those who just hate shopping.
To buy using this platform, you’d need to click on this link, then select or type in the shop you want to buy from, in this case Choppies Solomons. You can then chose the goods you want to buy and from which brand by selecting from the different categories provided. After filling your online cart, you can now proceed with the payment details as well as with providing the identification details e.g. ID number of the one to collect the goods after the 1-2 business days processing period. You can also chose to have SMS notifications sent to you informing you on the status of your order.
And as I mentioned before, the internet can either work for you or against you and I believe Choppies is moving in the right direction…
7 comments
Correction:The partnership is with Choppies Zimbabwe,groceries can be picked up from Choppies Solomons,which is the pilot branch for the initial launch before the concept is rolled out nationwide
Thanks for that
This is a good initiative, nut l believe it can only work for those who have children, relatives or friends in the diaspora, but l believe that it could be very expensive for domestic consumers.
Can this initiative be used for domestic consumers?.
Why only diaspora… why dont they integrate local solutions like paynow then maybe I would be interested.
It’s so they get the money outside in foreign currency.
That’s job creation delivery drivers, call centre, web designers and maintainance, social media, cyber security,