E-commerce on a steady rise in Kenya

I have worked as an Internet service provider for over a decade, yet this is the time Kenya is finally getting onto the e-commerce bandwagon.

There have been many obstacles to making e-commerce a reality in the country, including a lack of legislation, adequate Internet infrastructure and innovation.

But it appears 2010 will be the year for a turnaround in the sector.

There is a rapid proliferation of e-commerce service providers into the country, owing to the introduction of the ICT Bill, the go-live of the Teams and Seacom high speed undersea cables as well as the rapid and widespread adoption of mobile money.

In the last six months, several e-commerce service providers have set-up shop. But because credit cards are not very popular in these markets, the mobile phone is fast becoming the preferred channel for making payments.

PesaPal one service provider, has three merchant web sites and is using Safaricom’s M-Pesa and Zain’s Zap mobile money transfer services to make transactions.

To use the service, one must register as a merchant or a buyer.

PesaPal is also gradually expanding their payments to include credit and debit cards.

Mobile money

Intrepid Data Systems is another e-commerce service which transacts through its iPay that has been integrated to the M-pesa and Zap services.

But unlike Pesa pal, only merchants are required to register in order to use the service.

Yet another mobile money based e-commerce service that will be launched this month in Kenya and Tanzania is Nilipe.com.

Nilipe works along similar lines as PesaPal and iPay where merchant web sites have been integrated to both M-Pesa and Zap.

There are also other e-commerce service providers that have opted for credit cards.

The most visible is I&M Bank who recently launched an e-commerce service.