How Websites and Online Merchants can attract Sales from Kenyan Buyers

Buying stuff online has become much easier in the last few years especially if the buyer and seller are from different countries, thanks to advancements in internet payment gateways. A few years ago, it would have been pretty cumbersome and expensive and the only option was you pay via a money transfer service e.g. Western Union. For this article, am going to concentrate on how you can transact online via PayPal. Some of the reasons I like Paypal are; its fast and convenient, it’s very secure (it’s the payment gateway that backs eBay, one of the leading ecommerce sites in the World currently) and you don’t have to dish out your credit card number to every merchant on the internet, and a large number of online retailers include it in their payment options. You can transact using PayPal from Kenya. Now, you might be asking what PayPal is? Well, PayPal is an internet payment company that allows you to transact online securely if you register with them, though you can still transact even without an account. Once you open an account with PayPal, you will be able to send or receive money from or to anywhere in the world. A PayPal account is backed by a real credit or debit card e.g. a Visa or a MasterCard i.e. for you to send money to another person via email addresses, the PayPal system will check against your attached cards if you have adequate funds to pay for the transaction, once approved by your merchant bank (the bank that issued your credit card) approves the transaction, PayPal completes the transaction for you. For you to use Paypal, you will need to have a credit card or a debit card for that matter, first things first.

How to advise them to get a credit card in Kenya?

Getting a credit card in Kenya is fairly easy with most banks launching new cards on the market. For the purpose of this article, I’ll explain two of my favourite cards. Okay, they are prepaid credit cards making them more like your normal debit cards, in that you can’t spend or draw more than you have in your account. The first one will be the:

KCB General Purpose Visa Prepaid Card-getting this card is fairly easy. All you need is an original National I.D or Passport and a onetime application fee of Ksh1000.You don’t even need to have a KCB account. The charges for maintaining the card is pretty manageable with a charge of Ksh 100 per month charged to your card. You get the card the card within a few days of application. Once you get the card, it’s easy to use it, you can reload the card with money via tellers in any KCB branch. An advantage is that it’s a Visa card; you can use it in any Visa Branded outlets Worldwide and can withdraw cash via ATMs like your normal debit card. KCB also offers an online statement for the card i.e. you can access your card s transaction history and details online via KCB’s website.

I&M Safari PrePay Card-this is truly a unique kind of prepaid credit card, in that its backed by your own Safaricom’s Mpesa Account i.e. you can load money into your card account from funds in your Mpesa Account. To get the card, all you need is your original Kenyan national ID or Passport and a onetime fee of Ksh250 (about $4).Once you acquire the card, you will be reloading the card with funds from your Mpesa account using the Pay Bill option using business number 541541(Business number for I&M bank Prepaid cards)) and your card number as the account number. Your account is updated in real time by receiving a text message as a transaction confirmation. The good thing about this card, it offers a more advanced card management feature on its website. The card comes with two PINs, one for withdrawals in Visa and KenSwitch branded ATMs and An I-PIN for online transactions. The I-PIN lets you access all your card information e.g. all your transactions, you can block/unblock your card, you can activate the card for use over the internet for certain limits of time, change card details, you can set cash limits for transactions.

The card comes with a transaction notification system i.e. the moment you do any transaction online, you receive a text on your phone with the amount transacted, Sounds cool? The only thing that is outrageous about the card is the card reload fee, i.e. for you to reload the card with cash you get charged Ksh125 and the minimum you can load is Ksh500 (about $7).The card can also hold a maximum of ksh500, 000 (about $7,000) so you can probably buy Toyota or Nissan car using the card from an online car dealer in the UK, Singapore, Japan or Malaysia.

Now you wondering, since all this cards are preloaded with Kenyan shillings, how am going to pay for that item in Euros. Okay, it’s pretty easy-when you confirm payment of a transaction all the funds in your account are converted into the paying currency at the prevailing Forex rates that is done automatically, so you don’t have to worry about that. Your merchant bank will do that for you.