Don't Listen to Your Customer: Behavior Change in the Informal African Retail Sector
Firas Ahmad
Emerging Markets Innovator | Fintech | Group CEO AzamPay / Sarafu | firasahmad.substack.com
When we launched Sarafu, a B2B commerce app that allows retail FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) shops to place orders for their supplies on a smartphone, most of the retail shop owners we approached in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania were hesitant about the idea. Few were familiar with app-based ordering, and many did not have smartphones. Their preference was to call someone to place their order. This was the ordering habit since mobile phones became prevalent more than 15 years ago.
We ignored the request from our target market and did not to establish call-center ordering (although we do have a call center for customer service). In order to achieve the kind of scale we envisioned it was necessary to change the way shop owners ordered their supplies. Instead of a call center, we built out a team of sales agents to train shop owners on how to download and use the Sarafu app to place orders.
African Tech | Innovation | Entrepreneurship
3 年Really insightful, Firas. Do you have thoughts on whether there are circumstances in which "forcing" behavior change doesn't work? My best guess is that you might be able to change the relationship to tech, but not the actual behavior. So duka owners have to order, and you help them order better. But if you were trying to get them to stop ordering entirely or produce instead of order (nonsensical options, of course), that might not work.
Plant-entrepreneur at Plant Studio Kenya B2B Sales | Account Relationship Manager | SaaS
3 年Dukaree
Partner at Lawfic Attorneys, Helping businesses & Investors on Legal and Compliance matters
3 年Incredible development in TZ regardless of this not being your original idea.
Pitchman, I can help you sell it.
3 年This is such a very inspiring case study. Congratulations to Sarafu, keep disrupting the distribution ecosystem
Emerging markets | Supply Chain | Last-mile logistics | Informal retail
3 年Great insights Firas Ahmad. Do you foresee providing duka owners with financial support for smartphone purchases in the future? Or is this less of an issue right now?