Online shopping craze is sweeping through the country

Jonathan Maphenduka

ZIMBABWEANS in the diaspora and local traders have formed a partnership in which local relatives are being encouraged to buy groceries and other foodstuffs online. Local relatives are offered US$100 “gifts” to purchase their requirements from local supermarkets and then send invoices of their purchases back to the operator in the diaspora to pay for what was purchased.

While on the face of it the purchases voucher is seen by the beneficiary as an expression of goodwill towards the relative, the beneficiary gets very little value for money on the voucher. A friend of mine had the shock of his life when he went to his favourite supermarket last week and found US$6 was enough to buy two packets of sour milk, one packet of fresh milk, a loaf of bread and a drink for a total of ZW$250.

This means that US$100 voucher would seemingly give the beneficiary ZW$4 000 worth of foodstuff , the online buying operator will not send a relative US$100 cash through a money transfer operator. It is clear that this is because the online buying operator will lose revenue which comes from the supermarket.

The catch, of course, is that you are getting whatever the quantity of your purchases delivered on your door step. In most cases the goods are selected for you by the relative online and the end user has no say if he is getting a rotten loaf of bread or expired tinned food. Those who deliver your foodstuff to your home just don’t have time to allow you to check what you are getting for that goodwill food package.

I had a personal experience recently when a delivery was supposed to include chicken drumsticks, but there was nothing of the sort when that package was opened days later. My daughter’s goodwill was betrayed by those who do not care how they make money. One online organisation actually invites the beneficiary to select items of his requirements to be delivered, without any guarantee that the buyer will get what was ordered.

There is a whole lot of things that the supplier does not concern himself with because you have no way of checking out your requirements as specified. It is common therefore to get substitutes which may have remained on the shelves for years. What is really amazing is that both the online buying operator (who most times is a relative) who sends you the buying voucher and the supermarket operators don’t concern themselves with any ethics of the “deal” because the benefi ciary has no choice but accept what is delivered to him.

It’s not a secret that a significant number of Zimbabweans are struggling and will take whatever is offered under a goodwill label. Many readers will disagree with me on the grounds that I’m not “losing” anything and that mine is to be thankful and accept what has been offered without complaining. But does the online service operator concern himself with ethics while he pretends that he is doing all this out of the goodness of his heart? Is the benefactor’s “goodwill” (shown by sending that voucher) so cheap that selling the beneficiary a pig in a poke is all that matters, to be accepted without concern for what it is — a gambit to make money at any cost without considerations like distributing expired foodstuff s to the end user?

Even more serious is the cost of what is being supplied to devalue the local currency. Th ere is moreover a discernible pretence that the practice is a flawless trading service whose high cost should be ignored when it is destroying the local currency.

This trading phenomenon may be benefitting the beneficiary but it renders the local currency valueless and something must be done to arrest the hurtling drift to the days in 2008 when the local currency was being carried by the bag of valueless money which ruined many people. Stringent measures to protect the value of the economy have become more imperative. The prevailing online trading austerity system benefits the service provider and the supermarket operator.

The service provider is not using real currency whose value can be measured against any other currency. It is the surest way to devalue the local currency when the country is beleaguered with a whole host of social problems. The economy of this country is under the mercy of manipulators in the trading world which, sadly, is beyond control of any human authority.

The country’s economy is in facing difficulties and urgently needs to be rescued.

Jonathan Maphenduka can be contacted on 0772 332 404.