I second albert, there is simply no critical mass.

which is why ecommerce in ea should be export tailored.

On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 5:12 PM, Alex Mwega <alex@ims.co.ke> wrote:
I believe there are two critical issues here for ecommerce to take off esp in Kenya:
  • Most of these sites require you to have a credit/debit card and from what I can tell, Kenyans are paranoid about these cards and the charges they carry. It would explain why we chase out these persistent credit card sales reps or tell the receptionist to say we're not in the office even when its obvious we are.
  • There's the almighty fear - if I buy something on ebay, how do I have the assurance of it being delivered to me untampered. Remember most of us grew in the era where the only means to get something from abroad was either a relative coming back to the country or post. As for post, there was that rumour of airport staff 'stealing' your stuff and it never gets to you. As much as that sounds old skul, it could still linger in one's mind.
  • There's the complexity of what happens if I buy an item say a laptop and then it gets here broken, so you have to ship it back (at own costs) then ship it back again....etc etc

Alex



----- Original Message -----
From: "Joram Mwinamo" <joram.mwinamo@gmail.com>
To: "Skunkworks Mailing List" <skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke>
Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2010 4:55:52 PM GMT +03:00 Iraq
Subject: Re: [Skunkworks] E-commerce in Kenya

I guess companies like verisign and other verification companies abroad helped to build confidence around usage of internet to buy goods. However, please note that western markets are mainly trust based hence people can trust ebay and other e commerce sites of similar nature. 

So can someone start a verification business in kenya? or is there one? Also what are CCK/Central bank  regulations around this matter?

On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 4:45 PM, Albert Mucunguzi <ed@pctechmagazine.com> wrote:
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
 

From: John Maina
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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