Zimbabwean companies have jumped online to facilitate their trade

Zimbabwean businesses are embracing the Internet to capture a large share of their paying audiences that may live beyond their own borders.

Many Zimbabweans now live outside of Zimbabwe. For one reason or another, they now live abroad in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, etc. Oh who am I kidding? They are abroad for political and economic reasons. It is these same economic reasons that have made local Zimbabwean businesses use the internet and serve Zimbabweans abroad for their invaluable foreign currency. This is the lifeline of most Zimbabwean businesses: Forex.

So how does this work?

Basically, people abroad still have most of their family at home and contribute financially from time to time to support the family. With a lot going on due to Zimbabwe’s recent economic crisis, there has been an increasing need to purchase services or products such as generators, solar panels, wells, wells, etc., just to cover the basics of life. life. Your water, your energy, etc. At one point there was even a need to buy real groceries online or abroad just so someone could survive. It is not a joke.

Regardless, against this rather dark and bleak backdrop, some active companies have used their contacts to connect and capture this market for profit. I have lost count of how many Zimabuans are out of the country, but last I heard it could have been as many as 5 million against a total population of around 12 million. This is more than 1 in 3 living abroad! That may seem tragic at first, but when you look at someone abroad potentially supporting 2-3 people on average, the numbers become much brighter. I’m sure you can see the potential here.

Instead of the usual prohibitively expensive phone calls to landlines abroad, more and more companies are setting up websites and using services like Skype and the usual regular email to get in touch with those in faraway lands just so they can make business together. In fact, there is now a saying that there are only two types of businesses in Harare; those online and those out of business! In fact, there is now a formidable presence of such companies on social networks like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc. And who can blame them? You need to connect with your prospects where they play, right? Right.

The local infrastructure is also helping out with this and that data cable being deployed to handle the surge of traffic online and the Internet in general. I hear that there are now more Blackberry mobile phones than any other brand of mobile phones in major cities simply because of the demand for online access and so on.

With very few online businesses in Zimbabwe to begin with, those online are in contact with these “foreigners” and can easily market their services for payment directly online but with services dispatched or served in Zimbabwe itself. With “cheaper” online marketing and easier communications, this has proven to be a real winner and continues to grow. The Internet is definitely the way to go. Who is the next one?