An eCommerce chat with Kaymu Zambia on entrepreneurship and innovation

In an hour with the online marketplace, Kaymu Zambia, they showed some great ways young entrepreneurs/startups looking to start their businesses even without a physical location can make use of Kaymu’s online eCommerce platform, for free, only paying a commission if they make a sale.

The main points to note are:

• Kaymu is part of a global marketplace that connects buyers and sellers together in 34 countries across Africa, Asia and Europe, but each country has its own network of buyers and sellers.
• 55% of the online marketplace’s site traffic is from mobile devices, and 45% from desktops in Zambia.
• The ecommerce market advertises goods for top sellers, meaning they cut down on other conventional advertising costs. Kaymu Zambia will move to push their sellers offline soon as well (no approximation was given of exactly when).
• Some already established businesses have done extremely well online than they have in physical locations due to a wider market base on Kaymu as it enhances existing offline and establishes new online businesses.
• Kaymu provides guidance and mentorship to sellers in running their own business on the website, as well as inform buyers of how to go about making orders from the top sellers.
• For young entrepreneurs looking to grow their business, Kaymu provides a platform that will enable them to earn an income.
• Sellers must make their sure their products are attractive and in great condition, to avoid returns, as Kaymu offers consumer protection where buyers can return purchases within 7 working days if not satisfied with the item. This does not take too long because both buyers and sellers are in the same country, or maybe even town.
• Users of the site don’t have to be tech savvy as it is very easy to use and understand.
• The most important details users need when signing up on Kaymu are contact and delivery address details.
• All the items’ prices are in Kwacha because it is a network of Zambian sellers with items stocked within the country, selling to local buyers.
• The access to the site is getting easier as the cost of data/internet bundles in Zambia is steadily dropping, as is the price of smartphones.
• Kaymu is targeting rural sellers in far flung areas as well as the uploading and marketing processes are online, so there is no need to come in person to upload items for sale (this really works for sellers with goods and a very small market in their region). Their delivery service partners MacSpeedy’s and EMS ensure that no matter where the seller or buyer is, the item gets from and to them, respectively.

Any venture that helps young business owners grow in Zambia is a great move. The cost of owning a business in Zambia is high when one thinks of bills like rent and transportation of goods, which Kaymu is cutting down on. The cost made on sales is very minimal and has the potential to get more deals made for sellers as a large number of Zambians are getting more and more knowledgeable about the internet’s use. More people are on social media and it’s proving to be a great advertising tool for many business who are jumping on the eCommerce bandwagon, doing a bit more than traditional methods as feedback is almost in real time.

We hope they can include a cart, to boost more impulse buying, increase profits for their sellers and themselves, and also to possibly add on more payment methods as at now the only two are cash on delivery (CoD, which is not bad seeing as Zambia is a cash-paying society) and through MTN’s Mobile Money platforms.