18 Apr 2016

The collapsing of businesses seems to be the norm amongst Batswana who engage in small businesses as they bring little returns than anticipated leading to frustrations.

This should be a wake-up call to them to benchmark, do research about the business or any product they want to sell in order for the business to change their lives for the better.

One of the businesses that seems to have failed that many Batswana were engaged in is prepaid electricity that was introduced by a company called Kazang Pty Ltd. Most of the machines are now kept in drawers at home with no use.

In an interview, an officer at Kazang, Mr Tefo Disho clarified that his company offers an electronic vending service that was robust, secure, mobile and flexible.

With Kazang prepaid machines, traders could sell airtime and electricity with or without printing the voucher number on a receipt. He said they introduced prepaid airtime and electricity vouchers at a discounted price and re-sold them to customers.

In addition, he said they introduced the business as a way of having Batswana who had interest to invest and do business in a much easy way.

Mr Disho said before selling the machines to customers, they explained to them how they operate and how much profit they could expect from engaging in such a business.

He explained that getting more profit depended on how each individual ran the business because the machines were not only for electricity, but airtime for different networks as well.

Mr Disho said if the trader realised that there was no profit in selling electricity, for instance, it was easy to shift to selling airtime than to stop operating at all.

He noted that although his business was stable, as a way of keeping it running, they were looking at introducing more services such as DSTV subscriptions.

One of the traders who bought two machines at the tune of P2 500 with the hope of making profit, Ms Nurse Malanga, said she engaged in the business without knowledge that it would have poor results.  

She noted that due to lack of proper research, she thought prepaid electricity would only be sold through Kazang machines and Botswana Power Corporation (BPC) and not at the supermarkets.

She said it was with the assumption that she thought when people avoid queues at BPC she would be able to sell more and make profit.

Ms Malanga said she learnt that it was important to carry research before investing in any business. ENDS