Pazimba.com, a vibrant Zimbabwean e-commerce service has started selling goods online to anyone in Zimbabwe via its website – www.pazimba.com.
By Own Correspondent
The e-commerce service that was under test over the past several months was opened up for use by the local market last month.
Taurai Chinyamakobvu, who is responsible for innovation at Pazimba.com said: “Designed for ease of use, Pazimba.com is a multi-merchant e-commerce shopping mall where buyers can find a variety of goods which they can buy online and pay using Ecocash, Telecash, Mastercard, Visa Cards and some Zimswitch cards issued by local banks. Goods ordered online are delivered anywhere across the length and breadth of Zimbabwe. Most of the goods we sell come with free delivery.”
“Pazimba.com gives buyers access to a variety of products such as such as electronics goods, clothing and books from a single website. It brings convenience in that buyers in Mutare, Kadoma, or Victoria Falls, for example, get to buy goods they cannot find in their towns, but are available in Harare, without travelling or sending anyone, and vice-versa”.
On Pazimba.com, various merchants can also sell their products by running virtual stores on the e-commerce shopping mall. This ensures that as the online marketplace grows over time, buyers will have access to a wide variety of goods via a single window.
In addition, shopping online via Pazimba.com gives Zimbabweans the convenience of buying goods at any time of the day – twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. This means that shopping in Zimbabwe is no longer dependent on the 8am to 5pm operating hours offered physical shopping outlets.
The delivery of all goods bought online is coordinated by the Pazimba.com team and its courier partners. Goods are ordinarily delivered to buyers a day after an order is placed where the delivery address is in a major city.
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Delivery to small towns and other areas normally takes between one to three days. Pazimba.com is committed to providing an excellent online shopping experience to everyone in Zimbabwe.
Pazimba.com has become popular with buyers in the diaspora who buy goods for friends and relatives in Zimbabwe.
Zimbabweans in other countries place their orders online, and goods are delivered to their specified recipients. One such buyer who uses Pazimba.com is Dr Alex Magaisa, a professor of commercial law at the University of Kent in the United Kingdom.
Said Magaisa: “I thought I would give it a go to see how it works. This, I have done and a few items that I have bought on the website this week have been delivered on time. And delivery is free. You identify your product and they deliver, usually the next day.
If you’re kuDisapora, as they say, it’s a useful platform to buy that gift to the parents and friends”.
Merchant Virtual Stores
For merchants, Pazimba.com lowers the costs of doing business. It enables retailers to sell their products to buyers across the country without incurring additional overheads such as rent, rates and additional labour.
This way, they get to reach more customers across the country to sell more of their products and turnover more stock. With the high costs of doing business in Zimbabwe, merchants will find this very handy.
Merchants that want to sell goods can sign up on the website to get their virtual store set-up. They will also be trained on how to run the virtual store. The virtual store has a dashboard with automated stock management capability.
A proudly Zimbabwean e-commerce operation
While the technology behind Pazimba.com is designed and hosted in both Zimbabwe and Japan, Pazimba.com is a proudly Zimbabwean operation, based in Harare.
