EcoCash abruptly pulls promotion, not a good look for the mobile money operator

EcoCash today announced suddenly that it was discontinuing the Win A Cow, Bank to Wallet promotion.

Important Customer Notice pic.twitter.com/wyKgqR288U

— EcoCash Zimbabwe (@EcoCashZW) May 22, 2021

Now, for those of you who might have not known what this was, you can be forgiven because as far we can tell the promotion didn’t run for all that long.

But a brief description of the Win a Cow Promotion was that you would be entered to win one of fifteen cattle if you made bank to wallet transactions using your EcoCash wallet. The strategy looks similar to that of the much-derided EcoCash Rewards, which sought to entice users to transact more on the platform.

Why EcoCash is piling on the promotions

The reasons behind the EcoCash Win a Cow and Rewards programs have everything to do with the RBZ’s restrictions on mobile money. The first and biggest that hurt the country’s largest mobile money operator (MMO) was the ZWL$5,000 a day which then became the ZWL$35,000 a week transaction limit.

These limits drastically reduced the flow of money that EcoCash was used to, meaning that they would get less money from transaction charges. The second reason was the one mobile money wallet per MMO directive that was issued by the RBZ’s Monetary Policy Committee. This measure was to limit how many wallets individuals could have on one carrier. And meant that people who were accustomed to moving a lot of money on two or more mobile money wallets couldn’t do that anymore.

On EcoCash’s end, they preempted the projected downturn with promotions that would get people on existing wallets a reason to use them more frequently.

Are the promotions working?

Well… the Rewards program seems to have worked as intended according to the data recorded by POTRAZ.

Market share of mobile money transactions

	Q1 2020	Q2 2020	Q3 2020	Q4 2020
EcoCash market share of transactions	98.31%	97.47%	98.26%	97.98%
Variance from quarter to quarter	–	-0.84%	+0.79%	-0.28%

Market share for value of transactions

	Q1 2020	Q2 2020	Q3 2020	Q4 2020
EcoCash market share of transactions	95.92%	92.17%	95.75%	95.79%
Variance from quarter to quarter	–	-3.75	+3.58	+0.04%

EcoCash saw an appreciation in both value of transactions and the number of transactions in the third quarter after a dip in Q2 2020. The third quarter of 2020 was when the new regulations were introduced and many speculated that these two categories were where EcoCash was going to be hurt the most with customers dabbling with the other MMOs. However, this didn’t happen on the scale that many imagined. If anything EcoCash just got a lot stronger in contrast to Telecash and OneMoney who haven’t been able to make a significant dent yet.

EcoCash Win a Cow promotion’s abrupt end does little to inspire confidence

So… The Rewards program was a win for EcoCash but not so much for their customers. It was plagued with a number of issues the first being the auto-redeem points system. The idea was that when you have accrued the threshold number of points, EcoCash would then give you your winnings at the end of each month for the six months the promotion was active.

However, many people were super upset when they didn’t get what was promised which then pushed EcoCash to offer its customers a way to redeem the points themselves. And this went as well as the auto redeem function because from what we saw on social media not a lot of people were able to redeem their points at the end of the month.

And with the seemingly abrupt end of the EcoCash Win a Cow Promotion, it easy to see why customers are losing confidence and even making fun of the country’s largest MMO. Check out the comments on the Facebook post EcoCash put out announcing the end of the promotion.

Worse still there was little in the way of an explanation as to why the promotion was being discontinued. This could mean that whenever EcoCash says it’s hosting another promotion, most people are going to want an opt-out option because of the events of the previous two.

If for nothing else, just to escape the litany of SMSes that come with any new EcoCash promotion.