Covid 19 And Online Groceries Shopping By Zimbabweans. Which Options To Trust ?
Are you facing these issues ?
1. You are looking for a trust worthy online groceries
shop.
2. You are worried about your exposure and loved ones’
to Covid 19 and its mutations like Delta.
3.You are concerned about how best to feed the
vulnerable in Zimbabwe.
I understand your pain …
People only told me about how much commission I would earn from selling
a house but no one told me about the cut throat competition associated with
this activity.
The weapons my new company had for the vicious fight were outdated offline
or physical marketing methods like tiresome door-to-door campaigns. Indeed it
was like going for a gun fight with a table knife.
With new market dynamics like the role of the diaspora it was clear to
me that the best solution was in adapting internet-based marketing methods.
After all many of life’s day to day problems were being solved by
online-based solutions like Facebook that connected millions of long lost
friends separated by distance.
So I gave it a try by converting a high school poem writing ability into
property article writing. When you do not have money, the best way to get
started is always by making do with what is there.
My generous friend noticed this new development and he helped me set up
a blog in 2012. A blog is a platform that helps in promotions by making it easy
to publish marketing content like business articles.
The year 2014 was a turning point because after two years of studying
the new approach I finally earned USD 1 000.00. It all started when I wrote an
article titled,
This article resonated with a prospective client who had a house purchased
from a seriously-ill seller. She eventually decided to sell the property
through my agency after reading the article.
It was sweat to finally find an effective answer to a problem that
threated me with starvation.
Internet-based solutions that helped to solve my marketing challenges
and many other problems people face today can be an answer to another problem
being faced by local Zimbabweans and those in the diaspora.
“While
remittances generally involve cash transfers, shortages of basic commodities in
Zimbabwe encourage migrants to purchase goods abroad and bring them home when
they visit….
The most common non-cash remittances include
foodstuffs (for example, maize-meal, sugar, salt, and cooking oil) …”
Migrant
Remittances And Household Survival in Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe’s Exodus – Crisis,
Migration, Survival,
Southern
African Migration Program (SAMP)
Memories of long ques for basic
commodities are still vivid in my mind. Though the ques are gone the memories
remain as a highlighter of the multi-faceted problem of food access.
But with the emergency of Covid 19, its mutations like Delta, resultant
lockdowns restricting movement, the problem took a new dimension which is the
need to access food in a safe manner.
Another facet of this problem is associated with increasing use of
online shopping platforms by once reluctant Zimbabweans because, as more and
more people use online shopping platforms, bogus operators and make believe
outfits are being attracted.
So, with online groceries shopping, it is not only about convenience and
safety, but also about trust.
For hard working Zimbabweans they would really want to
see every cent going to intended purposes. Isn’t it ?
So, if you value the role of trust in online groceries
shopping here is what you should know about available options.
1. Cut and Paste Foreign Models
The shortage of basic commodities in Zimbabwe is also
an opportunity that has attracted foreign e-commerce entrepreneurs.
These online grocery shops can best be identified as cut
and paste business models because their owners imported business ideas they are
familiar with in their home countries and which best suits their strategies.
Usually, they use the capital intensive inventory model which involves stocking items from suppliers who are mostly foreign.
Although they have helped in reducing food shortages, they
have struggled to provide customer services that answer local queries.
Furthermore, lots of money is not the answer to
everything because fresh produce, which is the source of some critical
nutritional needs, can only be secured through special partnerships between the
online grocery shop and farmers.
If an online grocery shop fail to secure these
partnerships, it will fail to sell fresh produce.
As a result, its clients will still visit physical
fresh produce markets like Mbare Musika in Harare where they expose themselves
to the deadly Covid 19.
Apart from foreign-owned online grocery shops, there
are locally-owned ones which also can best be identified by their business
models as follows.
2. Shopping Model
These online grocery shops are owned by many local
players because they are easy to start.
Upon receiving an order, the platform transfers the details directly to its delivery personnel whose job is to shop for the items and deliver them to the customer. These personnel are in fact called “shoppers” because they do the actual shopping in supermarkets on behalf of clients.
Being easy is good to the site owner because it means
low capital investment but to the client, its not necessarily so because it
means compromising quality, quantity and timeliness of delivery due to the lack
of investment in strategic partnerships with suppliers, logistics experts and farmers.
3. Buy Online Pick-up In Store Model
(BOPIS)
This business model is usually done by existing
supermarkets because it merges the online shop with their existing brick and
mortar distribution network of shops.
Because they already have a physical presence close to
consumers, supermarkets allows shoppers to purchase products online and later
collect them from the physical store themselves as per their convenience.
Covid 19 still remains a risk, especially during times
when the physical store has long ques.
This type of an online grocery shop brings together
two or more business models in order to best serve the customer.
For example it can have strategic partnerships with
local fresh produce farmers in order to ensure availability of things like vegetables,
fruits etc and at the same time it maintains inventory of products from
different suppliers or partner a vendor who maintains inventory on their behalf.
It also partner with experienced courier services for
swift distribution of food to beneficiaries.
To sum it up this model is crafted based on the mind
set that how best to serve the customer.
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