ZimSeller.com, Zimbabwe Online Supermarket Giant

Zimbabwe (SANEPR.com) May 2, 2008 -- ZimSeller.com Newsletter

At ZimSeller.com, we are always looking for ways to save our customers money and enhance the customer shopping experience. This attitude is engrained in our thinking and is reflected by the constant improvements we make to the technology we use, the products we sell and everything else we do. Now that the month of April is over and May is here, we can proudly announce the improvements we have made to save you money which our competitors are unable to match.

Accumulate Reward Points while you shop at ZimSeller.com

Many of you are likely to be in possession of a reward card issued by a supermarket in your local area which you use to accumulate points over a period of time with the option to redeem the points against an order total at a later date. Well, we now have that system too! In appreciation of your patronage, you will be awarded Reward points for each product you buy on www.ZimSeller.com , beginning 1st May 2008. Reward points will be added to your account automatically when you check out at a rate of 1 point for the equivalent of every US$1 you spend. As with most other systems, our points are worth $0.01 each, (equivalent of 1% of your order), and can be redeemed as a cash discount off your order at any time.

Over 200 new products introduced in April

With over 200 new product additions in April 2008 including food hampers, kitchenware, pet food, baby food and clothing, construction materials and stationery, ZimSeller.com has significantly enhanced its product portfolio. The additions further strengthen ZimSeller’s market leadership in the Zimbabwe online food shopping niche market, bringing the total number of products in stock, for immediate delivery, to over 2, 000. Other Zimbabwe online stores have no more than a few hundred products in stock.

Delivery anywhere in Zimbabwe

ZimSeller.com started as a small Zimbabwe food store with the aim to deliver within Harare and Chitungwiza only. However, the overwhelming customer response prompted the online shop to find ways to serve customers in other parts of the country. Accordingly, a delivery zone selector functionality was introduced to enable the application of different delivery charges based on the location of the receiving customer. Now customer from any part of the country can order groceries from the comfort of their homes with the assurance that ZimSeller.com will be bringing their groceries to their door step, wherever their home might be situated in Zimbabwe.

More payment options

Not every customer has the luxury of owning a debit or credit card. The managers at ZimSeller realised that, they were preventing a huge number of potential customers from buying groceries online for lack of a valid credit card. Whilst paying with card or Paypal is still the fastest way to process payments for orders, customers now have the option to pay by cheque or bank transfer. This payment option is now fully enabled and can be selected at check out. Once the order is confirmed, the customer will receive an email with the relevant bank details in order to complete the payment process.

New staff on board
Those of you who placed orders towards the end of April may have noticed that your orders were delivered much more quickly that before. This is because; we have hired new order fulfilment personnel with a retail background. They include a quality controller and an IT technician based in Harare and a logistics co-ordinator based in Bulawayo which brings the total of our staff members based in Zimbabwe alone to 16.

Some interesting statistics

In April alone, we registered an average of 2 customers per day. Responses to our questionnaire indicate that 30% of these customers found us through a search engine on the internet, 45% were referred by a friend or family member who new about us. Of the remainder, some decided to switch to ZimSeller after realising how they were being unceremoniously ripped off by other online shops, others came after the online retailers they were buying from had suddenly gone out of business (probably because they could not match our low prices).On average our customers place two orders each month worth between US$180 - $230 in total. In turn, ZimSeller.com took an average of 4 days to deliver customer orders. Of these orders, 80% were delivered to Harare and Chitungwiza addresses, 13% to Bulawayo and the remaining 7% to all other areas.

Challenges in Zimbabwe

Like most other businesses operating in Zimbabwe, ZimSeller.com continues to face several challenges such as;
•Severe shortages of local currency and maximum limits on the permissible daily cash withdraw from bank accounts. This in turn limits the amount of cash at our disposal and ultimately the speed at which we can pay our suppliers to replenish our stocks. Although we try to keep huge numbers of products in stock, the availability of certain very fast moving products such as cooking oil, rice and mealie-meal is frequently affected.
•Fuel shortages. Because ZimSeller.com sells fuel, some customers would not understand why their orders are sometimes delayed due to unavailability of fuel. Well, the fact is that ZimSeller.com does not sell the actual fuel but fuel coupons redeemable at petrol stations. Our vehicles also rely on fuel sold at our partner fuel stations which sometimes do run dry.

•Slow internet and unpredictable power cuts. Like most internet based businesses, ZimSeller.com is heavily dependant on internet connectivity. We, at ZimSeller.com do not mind slow dial up internet, but without electricity we have no way of accessing the internet at all when unpredictable power cuts occur. When this happens, updating the status of orders on the system or responding to emails may take a while. Fortunately, because we have offices in other countries and also because our website is hosted externally, the availability or “up-time” of our website is very rarely affected.

Conclusion

As ZimSeller.com continues to grow on a daily basis, the future looks good and we will be looking for more ways to help our customers save money when buying Zimbabwean food and other products online. We have plans to continue expanding our product ranges to include furniture and domestic appliances such as fridges and micro-waves. So watch this space!

This article was last updated on 30 April 2008.