How this works
Straight answers about buying, selling and riding.
Buying
- Do I need an account to order?
- No. Ordering asks for a name and a phone number and nothing else. An account saves those details for next time and keeps a list of your orders, which is the only difference.
- How do I pay?
- M-Pesa, either by paying the business directly from your own phone using the till or paybill shown on your order, or by card and mobile money through our payment provider. Money for an order goes to that business, not to BizMtaani.
- How do I find my order again?
- The link you were given at checkout is the way back to it, and it works on any phone. It holds a reference and a private token. The reference alone is not enough, which is what stops anybody who guesses a reference from reading your order. If you have an account, every order is listed under your account with its reference and a link back to it.
- Something is wrong with my order. Who fixes it?
- The business you bought from. They took the order, they hold the money and they have the goods. Their phone number is on their page. BizMtaani does not stand between you and them, and there is no automated refund button. A refund is arranged with the business.
- Why can I only collect from some shops?
- Because delivery is each business's own decision. A shop that has set a delivery fee, the areas it serves and a cut-off time will offer delivery; one that has not will offer collection only. Nothing is hidden from you. If a shop shows no delivery option, it does not deliver.
- Can I search for a product?
- Not yet. Search matches business names and towns. Once you open a business you can see everything it sells, but there is no search across products.
Selling
- What does it cost to sell here?
- Nothing at all during the pilot. After that, a monthly plan, plus a percentage of the orders BizMtaani carries and settles for you, between 0.6% and 1.5%, depending on the plan, and shown on the pricing page. Sales at your own counter are charged nothing, because they are yours and we had no part in them. Your payment provider charges its own fee on card and mobile-money transactions.
- Who gets the money from an order?
- You do, directly. Enter your own till or paybill and customers pay into it and nowhere else. Pay online instead and the provider splits it at the moment of payment, sending your share to your own account and ours to us. Either way BizMtaani never holds your takings, and there is no point at which your money sits in our account waiting to be passed on.
- How long does joining take?
- You apply, somebody calls you, and if it goes ahead you are given a sign-in and set up your own page, your products, your prices, your payment details, your staff. Applying is not joining; we are taking on a small number of businesses we can support properly and will say so if that is not you yet.
- Can I have more than one branch?
- Yes. Each branch keeps its own stock, prices, staff and orders, and customers pick the branch they want. Your chain appears once in the directory rather than once per branch. What a branch is here sets out what that does and does not include.
Riding
- Is there work available right now?
- Not reliably. Deliveries are being piloted town by town, and a business assigns them to riders it can see. Applying puts you on the list for your town; it does not earn you anything today.
- What do I need to apply?
- Your name, phone number and the town you work in. If what you ride or drive has an engine, we also need the registration plate and your licence number, and somebody checks them before you carry anything for anyone. A bicycle or a pair of legs needs neither.
- How am I paid?
- There are no rider payout terms yet, and nothing in the product calculates or pays a rider. A delivery fee charged to a customer is the business's, and what a rider is paid is arranged with that business.
Something not answered here? The business you are dealing with can answer anything about a specific order.