Worse still, most of our people use internet "just to check mail". If you talk to Internet cafés in Uganda, the largest number of their customers pay UGX 500 (which is the charge for 20minutes on average). And visit mainly one website: yahoo.com.
What is it about Yahoo.com that makes Ugandans visit frequently? Whatever it is, they find it compelling enough. They weren't born with email, they didn't get a Yahoo ID right after birth... something drew them to Yahoo.
Do you know why people don't shop online in Nairobi? Because it isn't compelling enough! So instead of blaming these "backward users", make your service compelling enough (on all fronts) and "they will come". This is a massive biz opportunity for anyone who is willing to make it sufficiently compelling.
In the pre-Google days, search was considered a done deal. Yahoo was king, with a few other moons orbiting Yahoo's sun. Then Google came and made search compelling enough and suddenly the scales tipped. This game-plan is everywhere: make your service compelling and you can slay many goliaths.
Another example: who would have though that mobile phones (a new technology at that time) would explode in poor/backward/rural Africa, of all places? It did, because people found it compelling enough. The mobile telcos created a new market practically out of thin air.
I guess the questions we should be asking is/are:
- how do you make e-commerce in Kenya/Uganda compelling enough?
- how are the existing services not compelling enough?
Saidi (compelled enough to write this email)
John,
I think this is a very interesting discussion.
I am from Uganda, so I guess I can only give a Ugandan perspective... I don't
believe we have the "critical mass" of people online anywhere in Africa, save
for South Africa may be.
If you compare the ratio of internet users to
the total population, you realise there is a really big problem. Worse still,
most of our people use internet "just to check mail". If you talk to Internet
cafés in Uganda, the largest number of their customers pay UGX 500 (which is the
charge for 20minutes on average). And visit mainly one website: yahoo.com.
Of course that is changing with the growth of
Facebook.
But the whole point is, people greatly relate
internet to mail. So even while the payment methods have come, and number of
internet users grown, we're still miles away.
The other important point I must not leave out
is that people do not trust the internet. There are lots of crooks online, so
people fear being victims of cyber crime.
Over to you!
Albert Mucunguzi
PC Tech Magazine
Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2010 4:30 PM
Subject: [Skunkworks] E-commerce in Kenya
I used to hypothesis that the reason we don't have a vibrant e-commerce
infrastructure in Kenya was the lack of payment solutions and lack of "critical
mass" of people online..These two problems have been solved yet we still have
nothing on the ground. So my question to y'all experts is what is hindering
e-commerce in Kenya?
John
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