Lol!
Thanks Saidi! I am with you on that one. Some
of the existing services are not compelling enough.
But I would like to Collin's points into
this:
What proportion of the population here, is :
a) banked enough to
have means of transaction.
b) moneyed enough to buy and sell
c) online
for long enough to engage in buying and selling
and finally,
specifically online to buy stuff.
And may be I add, that what proportion of the
online services are compelling enough to capitalize on the already small size of
the population that fits the characteristics indicated above.
Albert Mucunguzi
Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2010 10:34 PM
Subject: Re: [Skunkworks] E-commerce in Kenya
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:Â 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)
On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 9:45 AM, Albert Mucunguzi
<ed@pctechmagazine.com>
wrote:
John,
Â
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.
Â
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.
Â
Of course that is changing with the growth
of Facebook.
Â
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.
Â
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.
Â
Over to you!
Albert Mucunguzi
PC Tech Magazine
Â
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?
Â
John
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