Any hope for online sales in Malawi?

With the world becoming more technological today, the use of the internet has become an everyday thing for many people. Taking advantage of this, creative minds have opted for advanced ways of selling their products, one of which is online sales.

Unlike Malawi, in other countries, online sales have proved to be viable. Online selling platforms such as Amazon and EBay, just to mention a few, have become priority for buyers and sellers.

But even though the industry seems to be sprouting at rapid speed in other countries and slowly in Malawi, for others this is another way for them to enhance their quality of life by buying their items of choice without the physical burden of actually leaving their homes, schools or workplaces.

So far, a few local investors have eyed the development and ventured into the industry.

Dibs Africa, which is three months old in the industry, find the industry going but hope it is still not clear.

Malawi today has Dibs Africa and Malawimusic.Com just to mention a few as official websites providing a platform for buyers and sellers to interact and sell or buy various sales in the country. In addition, there are other Facebook pages such as Let’s Do Business which have been in operation for over two years acting as a marketplace for buyers and sellers of assorted items.

After its creation a few years back, Malawimusic.Com, is the only website created for musicians to sell their and music lovers to buy music online. But since its introduction early this year, the only available option for music lovers was to pay for the digital music via Visa credit cards which meant that a large part of the local market was excluded from utilising the music service fully.

“In an effort to extend the sales in Malawi, we partnered with Airtel Malawi to enable people in the country has access to the country but still there seems to be hiccups as people seem not sure of the new development,” says Malawimusic.Com marketing manager, Dingaani Whayo.

In a similar development, Shoppaz Malawi which is another upcoming online shopping platform will roll in operation but assurance if Malawians will receive the new development is still a challenge for them.

In attempt to fill the gap that lies in the online selling business, shopping and delivery service company, Grocery Deliveries has come to deliver various groceries stocked in Malawi’s leading shops such as Shoprite, Savers Choice, Sana Cash N Carry and Dynachem.

Groceries Deliveries operations manager Dalitso Mdoka says he finds hope in the new development looking at technological advancements even though the country lies behind in terms of online shopping.

“Understanding that the world is moving forward today and every sector is being hyped up technologically, we thought it wise to introduce this system to assist the busy people who it finds hard for them to leave their job and go shopping but also trying to avoid traffic jams and queuing in the shops, but only a few Malawians seem to welcome the idea,” he said

He said people are aware of the few online shopping sites that are available, but Malawians are used to buying things what they see, as such, people are hesitant to buy things online as they think online items are not credible enough.