Online stores now make sense in Zimbabwe. Apart from the increased internet penetration; we, because of the cash crisis, have been forced to ‘grow up’ fast. Amongst other epayment options, mobile money e.g EcoCash came into the scene and made online payments simpler and doable.
You’ll also notice that there has been a rise in local online stores even in the last year with even some physical shops beginning to create their own online platforms e.g. Choppies.
Over the years, Techzim has covered a good number of these online stores and/or online trading platforms. Today meet Cabbana, a fairly new kid on the block.
Cabbana is an online store which sells a variety of products from both male and female clothing to home decor. The site is quite appealing and has a user-friendly User Interface (UI), though of course the images of the products on the home page could surely be improved.
Nonetheless, Cabbana isn’t just open for those interested in buying items online, but those who are willing to sell, or deliver the products. On the site, you can sign in as a ‘seller’ or as a ‘driver’. Sellers can sign in as individuals or as companies. Drivers however need to provide a couple of documents before they are verified.
If you sign as a seller, you get to take away 85% of their purchased goods. The rest of the 15%, according Happy Zhou – the founder, is divided between the transaction fees and the business (Cabbana) at 5% and 10% respectively. Drivers on the other hand get 60% of all delivery fees while the remaining 40% goes to Cabbana.
All the money generated from sales goes into the Cabbana account first, from there, it is then sent to the various sellers accordingly rather than it going to the seller first then Cabbana. I assume it’s so that they are guaranteed of getting their money from the sales. I know for sure that companies especially, have issues settling debts with ‘smaller companies’ or startups, so this should be a smart way of ensuring that they pay. But it can still go the other way round right?
Anyway, there’s something that’s of interest on the Cabbana market, it allows for buyers to make an offer aka negotiate for a price that they are more comfortable with paying. I know of friends who would never buy anything without thoroughly negotiating for a lesser price first, of course only if that permits. So when choose a product you want to buy on the Cabbana site, you can either just add it to your shopping cart, buy it or ‘make an offer’. There’s also room for you to then make a note justifying why you’d prefer that amount instead of the initial amount and then wait for the seller to either accept the offer, make a counter offer, or decline the offer.
Sounds interesting doesn’t it?
Maybe you can try the site and tell us what you think. It will obviously be helpful for the startup as well since they are still testing their system and all. The site also has tutorial videos you can use to help you navigate or understand how the system works even more (which is also impressive I must say).
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15 comments
Cabbana team, please install a certificate, add a robots.txt file and add a favicon image(it makes a difference)
Hi King thanks for feedback, favicon can be done. Kindly elaborate what you mean by robot.txt file? and what that is for…rather what difference it makes. We also have an android apk now which will make it easier for our visitora to work around our platform. Average of 65% are using mobile.
🙂 by google analytics.
..you have a taxi service installed? Sounds like too much to handle and should’ve been on different platforms.
hi we have deliveries for our customers. not a taxi service. anyone who shops item is delivered for them.
robot.txt will safeguard your content from illegal scrapping/crawling bots. Whilst allowing beneficial crawlers like Google.
okay great….thanks we’l take that into consideration.
Lol! Soooo, an illegal scapper or bot sees a robots.txt file and decides, I’m not allowed to scrape this site, so let me not. I don’t think illegal bots are that coureous. A robots.txt is used to give instructions to any bot. Anywho, Mr. Happy, google and get more info, you’ll learn the wrong stuff from ill-informed comments.
Thanks Noted!
This article could CERTAINLY be written better. I just checked the website too, it looks rushed and isn’t polished. Patsvairwa, pakakorobwa, pakaiswa “cobra” bvazvasiiwa zvakadaro. No idea why. I don’t think it was very smart of TechZim to post this, either, SMH.
I applaud the effort, smaller companies trying to compete with the bigshots. Great, but it would help to also be better polished.
If you wanna, consider working with http://www.spectrumworx.com, great work guaranteed.
A very shameful way of looking for business. Much could be said when looking at the Spectrumworx website too. It is incredibly slow and is heavily loaded with unnecessary images. From what I can see of their portfolio, there is no evidence of any web-design related work to be seen, just a dump of paper based graphic design work with no context. I wouldn’t consider working with them.
@Cabbana. Good job!! Your site should evolve and grow over time.
Tried selling on cabbana site, when you go to payments option telecash, Ecocash ,visa,mastercard ,vpayments, u get more than 10 payment links different names all leading to one option.when i tried purchasing an item for $12 by when checking out at paynow it was now $22 ,so expensive.
i dont believe this is accurate our payment options are cash on deliver for harare, ecocash paynow for online payments and call and pay. there is currently no product priced at 12$. This is not an accurate feedback. however our products listed are priced based on sellers pricing structures.
when a buyer checks out there is an instruc tion after checkout which advises them to pay using their chosen method of payment.
SSL Certificate mentioned by TheKing is an absolute requirement for an online store. It’s what adds https:// to the front of your address. This makes the connection between you and the visitor private and secure. With a non https connection users card info could be stolen.
website down.looks like unpaid hosting.i dont get why people rush to launch these projects,they are so delicate
do check again. its working..