Every few months someone quotes a shop owner a web store: a domain, a design, a payment gateway, a year of hosting. Then the store goes live and gets eleven visits, because the customers were never going to type a URL. They were in WhatsApp the whole time, where they already are all day.
Selling online in Zimbabwe is not about a website. It is about making the channel people already use do the work of a shop.
What “selling on WhatsApp” looks like when it is done properly
- A catalogue in the chat. The customer asks what you have, or taps a link, and gets your products with prices, from the same stock list your till uses. Out-of-stock items do not show.
- The order takes itself. “Two of the 25kg and one 10kg” becomes a sales order with the customer’s name and number, without anyone retyping it.
- Payment without a card. The customer pays by EcoCash, OneMoney or a bank transfer, sends the confirmation, and it is matched to the order. A receipt goes back automatically.
- Delivery or collection. The order lands on a picking list for your storeroom, and the customer gets a message when it is ready or on its way.
- Repeat orders in one line. For business customers, “same as last time” works, because the assistant has last time.
For distributors: your retailers ordering without the phone call
If you sell to shops, your sales reps spend their day taking the same orders by phone and writing them down. On WhatsApp, each retailer places their own order at their own price list, credit limit applied, and the rep’s time goes to finding new customers instead of transcribing old ones.
What about the website?
Keep one page that says who you are and where you are, with a WhatsApp button. That is what a website is for here. The shop is in the chat.
Which package
A single shop starting to take orders on WhatsApp is a Shop package ($35, 600 conversations a month). A distributor with retailers ordering is a Trader or Wholesaler. Delivery runs, customer price lists and credit limits are in the distribution packages.