2020 brought some changes to the way business is done in Zimbabwe and the world at large. As COVID-19 induced lockdown restricted the ability of Zimbabweans to move around early in the year 2020 businesses looked to delivery as the best way to get products to the people. Tenga 4 wena is a business that leveraged on this coupled with the large diaspora based community who regularly sent money to Zimbabweans based at home for regular upkeep. Tenga 4 wena provides a service that delivers food packages to recipients across the country.

How it works

Anyone from anywhere in the world can order a pre-packaged hamper and have it either delivered to the residential address or collected from one of their many pick up points. In addition to their own network, they partnered with Swift logistics to add their nationwide distribution network to their collection points. The purchaser can pay for the service on their website offering a truly seamless eCommerce experience.

As of December 2020 Tenga 4 wena offered 3 packages the Standard, Premium and Christmas hamper. These hampers include basic consumer goods such as cooking oil, sugar, flour, mealie meal, soap, peanut butter and sugar beans with the Christmas hamper adding pasta, jam, biscuits, sweets and other festive season favourites to the package. While being very useful to beneficiaries under lockdown conditions the service is useful all year round and in all times especially to those in the diaspora supporting family back home. Prices for the packages range between US$24 and US$44 including pickup fees. Delivery mandates an extra US$5 and is only available in Harare.

While it is not the first service of its type in Zimbabwe, partnering with a monolith in logistics of the stature of Swift opens them up to a larger network and has helped them appeal to a wider customer base.  The simple 1-2-3 process (select package and location, pay and collect) for completing the transaction is certainly a breath of fresh air from the dual complicated and convoluted processes that have become the norm in the grocery delivery industry in Zimbabwe.

Tenga 4 Wena has done a great job in establishing trust with customers. The online shopping world in general is hinged on gaining the customers’ trust pre-transaction. Everybody has a story or knows someone who has a story about how an online transaction went wrong due to the vendor not delivering as promised or at all. Tenga 4 wena has mitigated risks to prospective clients by being a business that extensively communicates publicly and continues to show the public that they care. Publicising their approach to orders, delivery and security has certainly made them a better option in the eyes of the consumer.

Tenga 4 wena has also proven to be a business with a heart and their latest exploits involved distributing food parcels to the less fortunate in December 2020. This is a noble initiative considering how bad things were in 2020. Businesses were closed, jobs were lost and those who rely on the charity of others may well have been the hardest hit. Through this and other initiatives, Tenga 4 wena goes to show that it is not simply a business that happens to exist in the same circumstances as Zimbabweans less fortunate but that it is involved in the community that it works in.

We have spoken a lot on this platform about the challenges that eCommerce in its various forms faces in Zimbabwe. The picture is not rosy and many of the vital parts of the supply chain that are attributed to the success of eCommerce internationally are in disarray in the Zimbabwean landscape. Tenga 4 wena, therefore, represents a business that has found a way to succeed in times that are otherwise not conducive to business. A simplified working system and smart partnerships have proven to be their tools to fight the problems that dog eCommerce based businesses in Zimbabwe.

To speak of the future after the year we had is surely taboo. Tenga 4 wena is closed for holidays until late January and it’s unsure if they will return to a locked-down country or not. What we know is that in the past they have traversed challenges through transparency and simplicity. Whatever new challenges lay ahead we wish them the best in overcoming them. You can find out more about Tenga 4 wena on their Facebook and their Website.