The Sunday News
Let’s Get Stylish
IT is almost every fashion enthusiast’s dream in Zimbabwe and perhaps the world, to have a personal tailor and shopper. With Zimbabwe in the Third World cluster, it comes as no surprise that the fashion industry is fast gaining momentum and is developing to meet the world standards.
A few weeks ago or rather about a month ago, I got a request to like a certain page on Facebook — ZimboShopper, an online shopping agency.
To be honest, before I carried out research on the agency, I thought to myself: “This must be another sleazy scam by someone trying to make a quick buck off people.”
Much to my surprise, it turned out to be a legitimate online shopping agency, as I discovered that I knew one of the people in charge of the agency.
Anyway, as I asked them how it worked they explained to me that is was a similar idea to that of America’s eBay.
Deemed the world’s first and best online marketplace where buyers and sellers can meet and trade almost anything online, eBay provides a forum for both the client and product or service provider to meet, even though they are from different countries.
Basically a salesperson or whoever is selling something lists an item on eBay and chooses to accept only bids for the item.
ZimboShopper practically offers the same option, particularly focusing on fashion and accessories.
ZimboShopper was established in February this year by Zimbabwe born Justin Masiwe who wanted to bridge the trust gap between clients and cross-border traders. He is a business consultant in South Africa working towards implementing the broad-based Black Economic Empowerment Act, a piece of legislation meant to transform various firms workforce and ownership structure to suit the demographics of the active population of the country.
He said he graduated with a B Com (Hons) Economics from Midlands State University in 2005 and had been based in South Africa for the past eight years. He said he had been purchasing various goods and products for friends and relatives but never felt satisfied with just providing for a small group.
He said: “Whenever I came to Zimbabwe people would tell me how they were made to pay exorbitant prices for products that were affordable in SA. Above all, there was a general feeling of being cheated, since these products would arrive without their price tags and most of the times these would be stolen products bought on the black market.
“I knew Zimbabweans were longing for a business that was transparent and that gave birth to ZimboShopper.”
As Justin put it, the service offered by ZimboShopper is relatively new to Zimbabwe and is yet to grow and not only targets certain groups but everyone.
“The clients simply tell us what they want (anything — clothes, among many other things) from SA by communicating to us via our three platforms, Facebook, WhatsApp and email. Clients can visit South African shops websites on their own and send us either pictures or web links of the products they want. We then do a quote which shows the price of the product in store, our 10 percent shopping fee, shipping costs, customs duty and VAT. Everything is transparent; with this service,” said Justin.
From the time the agency was established this year it has received many positive reviews online, with many fashionistas saying they got their money’s worth.
“ZimboShopper started as a one-man service provider but now it has attracted the attention of 10 other people who have since established an office in Harare as the demand from clients is growing,” noted Justin.
So with such a nifty project being run by one of our own across the border, local designers who always complain about finding raw materials for their designs locally, can use this facility to create fabulous designs. In my opinion, this is a great forum to share ideas on what is being sold across the borders.
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