A note:
Those of you who follow us on Pindula (our other media brand) already know we sell mobile phones. We’ve been doing it for the last 2 years, and we are so thankful for everyone that has bought a phone or referred someone.
There’s always been the question of why we don’t sell on Techzim, especially given smartphones are technology tools and we already write about them quite a bit. Yes, that didn’t make sense.
So these past several weeks, we have been working on making smartphones available for buying on Techzim. Our WhatsApp Market bot and the shop page right here.
Why do we sell stuff on Techzim?
We started selling stuff back in 2019 – enabling our community buy airtime and pay their bills (Zesa, Nyaradzo and such). The reason was to provide ways for our audience to support our work directly.
While advertising revenue does cover some of our costs – it just to a small extent. As a business model it has its complications. Advertisers often attempt to influence our opinion on things. And even those that don’t (most advertiser have come to accept this about us) the whole advertising ecosystem in Zim is fraught with problems. Then, separately, Google Adsense and other Adtech (like Taboola chumbox etc…) not only pay little, they interfere with the experience and our incentives big time. Some of the ads are just misleading. And all of us hate bad ads and stuff popping up everywhere.
So we’d rather you discover something on our platforms and just be our customer, directly. Ideally, we want to sell something that you already buy and would decide to buy from as as a way of supporting our work and, hopefully it goes without saying, because we provide better services than the competition.
Over the years, we have found this aligns our incentives and those of our readers.
So yes, when you buy airtime or a phone on Techzim, you’re supporting our work and helping us build a sustainable business.
How to buy a smartphone on Techzim
WhatsApp: To browse our phone catalogue on WhatsApp, just send “Mobile Phones” to the bot number: 263717684274
Website: techzim.co.zw/shop
We do cash on Delivery throughout Zimbabwe. We pride ourselves on exceptionally good customer experience. We just want you to get the right phone for your needs, because we too are smartphone owners and have been frustrated by bad experiences.
FAQs About Techzim mobile phones
Samsung, Redmi, Tecno, itel, Infinix, ZTE, Nokia
From reputable wholesalers locally for Samsung and Redmi.
From official relationships with the brands for ZTE and Transsion
All brand new. We make every effort to avoid refurbished phones.
Grey. The devices were manufactured for the Indian market. They are bought there and imported into Africa and Zimbabwe by wholesalers. Samsung’s own channel results in super high prices that customers generally aren’t willing to pay. We tried and it just didn’t work.
Not yet. We haven’t figured out how to source this brand reliably.
Not yet. One day we hope to for the Apple fans amoung you.
12 months for ZTE and Transsion brands.
6 months for Samsung and Redmi
None.
We’d like to focus on smartphones for now and really hone in our skill in understanding them – supply chain, customer needs…
At the moment, no.
We’d like to focus on just mobile phones.
Advertising is hard because of the issues mentioned at the start of this article.
We tried the marketplace approach for over a year and we just couldn’t make it work. We documented our lessons here.
We have not given up on this, ultimately we think, done well, this would provide amazing value for the ecosystem.
No. Just deliveries.
No immediate plans.
Not yet. All cash on delivery for now.
We do accept EcoCash and Innbucks manual payments. We’re working to make this happen online, proper eCommerce style.
No.
We have thought a bit about this and hopefully in the future we can make make it work for our customers, and also just enabling community members to deal with each other. Very interesting market this one.
If you already love our work, this is a great way to support it.
But beyond that we do focus on ensuring you get great service from before buying to after owning the phone. Fair pricing. No funny stories – the truth always, even when it costs us money and eats all our margin into the negative.
Like you, we also hate short-term thinking and cutting corners.
If you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to send to them to us on our support number: +263715068543 or in the comments below.
If you have any suggestions of feedback, we’d love to hear from you. Comments, WhatsApp support number, or just inbox me on +263772464000.
Thanks
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