Promoting Impact Technology Tanzania | Spotlight on ChapMart

Ever wonder where to find an online Tanzanian local market that links sellers and buyers to a variety of goods? Introducing to you ChapMart a digital marketing agency which is led with a tagline that says, “Connecting people driving commerce.” the reason for the slogan is because ChapMart aims at identifying local businesses in Tanzania that seeks exposure to the domestic market as well as international market through digital applications.

The company was established in the year 2016 with Amani Ghachocha and Tunukiwe Daudi as founding partners. In an interview with Tech & Media Convergency (TMC) Amani shared the company’s journey to success. Amani studies at Ardhi University and he now operates as the Operation Manager overseeing everything after his partner got employed. They are located at Buni Hub, Sayansi in Dar es Salaam.

The Attended Problem

ChapMart has introduced convenience to products available in Tanzania, “The sole purpose of our platform was providing solution to an existing problem of goods that are rarely seen or identified in the market, we came to realize there are goods that are mostly accessible to interior regions and can be difficult to market so we wanted to build a platform where they could be discovered and people could find their products.”

The Inspiration Behind

Through the years of innovation I’ve been working as a freelancer and a software developer, and I can say most places I’ve gone to buy goods are either referred to me by someone I know or are simply a place I know. It was very difficult for me buy something from a place I hardly ever heard of and I thought to myself there are a number of great businesses out there that seek the recognition of what they are selling, so how about building a platform where all these businesses that are rarely identified can come and market their goods.”

The Startup Investment

ChapMart is a self-funded company, Amani tells us while building the products there were developments costs to be covered and he bootstrapped the business from the savings he had to run the operations, so far ChapMart has not attracted any potential investors.

Amani Ghachocha, Co-Founder of ChapMart at Tech & Media Convergency (TMC) office during an interview session

How the Service Work

A person goes to a website www.chapmart.com finds a list of products listed there and potential vendors that are registered on the website so a customer places an order, then go to the checkout process you can complete the payment process as you complete making your order. In order to maintain our customers trust and ensure security to products that have been purchased, the payment method for the registered vendors takes place after the goods have been delivered to end user/customer.

Amani tells Tech & Media Convergency (TMC), “Apart from linking the seller and the buyer, through our services a registered vendor has the benefits of making his or her business known in both domestic and international market, it speeds up one’s sales, one is paid securely on time, helps building a global brand, one can get promoted for quality services and fosters well-built business connections.”

Targeted Customers and Market Reach

“Our target customers is any individual who works long hours and rarely has a time to physically visit the market or shopping malls, we also target international market who have no access to Tanzanian products.” ChapMart reaches their customers through the use of digital means such as Social Media Ads, Social media platforms like Instagram or Facebook.

Their Perspective on Eco-System Positioning

ChapMart says what differentiates them is the how they ensures money transaction security between their buyers and sellers. There is a number of risk that comes with buying products online such as, making payments over unsecured web pages, fake websites that advertise for offers of goods and services that do not exist, but with ChapMart they’ve ensured the security of their website, the vendors are reliable since they are registered and the information of their business is there as well as making sure the products ordered is safely delivered and the vendor is paid on time after the goods are delivered.

The Achievements

“The biggest achievements we have witnessed is having a growing numbers of visitors on our website from the year 2016, I remember to have started with around 500 to 1000 visitors per month to 6000 per month. Another milestone reached is having quite a number of confirmed orders along the years.”

Amani believes great achievements come with the presence of a strong team, whose skills complement each other and he regrets to not have had that early on.

What to Improve

“I would say marketing is the biggest thing that we need so far in terms of growing our website and our business, if we could reach more people or media to get the word out there, to know about ChapMart the security and benefits one may get by being in the platform that would really help in the growth of our business but finance is also as important because by finding these people to market our business we ought to pay them.”

Covid-19 Impact

The pandemic was advantageous to ChapMart, Amani tells us, and the fact that they were already an e-commerce platform was already a bonus point. With all the restrictions kept, they were still able to operate efficiently and take into account that most people hardly ever went to crowded place to buy goods, ChapMart found themselves receiving more orders and more entrepreneurs who wanted market their business in their platform.

Future Plans

“I see ChapMart becoming the giant of E-commerce in East Africa and Africa for I believe everything is possible with ambition and passion everything is learnable so we should not be not be afraid of dream big.

For further details about ChapMart visit Tech & Media Convergency (TMC) you tube channel by scanning the QR Code to this article. Do not forget to like, share and subscribe for more insightful stories, one can also access the online conversation about ChapMart across all social media platforms using the hash tag #ImpactTechTZ

To read more about our reports featuring Startups in Tanzania https://bit.ly/ImpactTechTZ2021-Report