Batakenya ,footwear manufacturer and retailer with a national network of over 100 ultra modern stores,last Friday launched eCommerce website. BataKenya promise to make shopping online fun and easy with their batakenya.com platform.
A few weeks ago I wrote a post about things which I thought need to work perfectly to enable success in the eCommerce Industry in Kenya. Among them being a great eCommerce website, Payment system which includes mobile payment option(MPESA), and ways to Deliver the items or products to the buyers.
Looking at the three, BataKenya seems to have locked all of them up. The website looks good although it took me ages to register because of the many required fields. I do not mind about that but I do mind the story where a site meant for Kenyans has fields called #States and #Country….mmmmh why not call them Counties and Country. Apart from that everything else is great.
Then there is the payment system. BataKenya is using Pesapal as the payment system platform. As I had mentioned in the post Pesapal has the best mobile payment integration platform. It allows the users to pay through Mobile Money (Mpesa, Aitel Money) ,Credit Card (Visa and Master Card).
Delivery Issue Sorted.
The delivery is the big Elephant in the room when comes to eCommerce in Kenya and I was eager to see how BataKenya plays it out. Well, they say they can do home and office delivery in Nairobi, Kisumu, Mombasa, Eldoret & Nakuru. BataKeny has partnered with Aramex to do home delivery of Bata shoes. The delivery is done within three days after the order.
Great stuff from BataKenya . And this coming just a few days after the launch of NationHela card by Nation Media Group, might be a signal of where is the eCommerce is heading in Kenya.
Impressive. This is a huge step in eCommerce in Kenya. They should do a study after 1 year to gauge its success.
That will be awesome. When I see Christine Mwiti of Bata next time, I will tell her exactly that
Though, the venture is targeted towards the urban population, and we have Bata stores virtually in every shopping center. I’d find it hard to order online when Bata shops are everywhere, but that is just me.