02 Feb 2021

It has been said that  tough times breeds positive ideas, and those who are always ready to take risks within a situation always emerge with a positive story to tell.

One such is Mr Motshidisi Ngaiti, who together with his business partner Mr William Whittle, when COVID-19 struck did not dwell much on the negative trail brought along by the pandemic, but rather saw a business opportunity not to be missed.

The duo established Essential to Survival PTY Ltd, that offers e-commerce service to local businesses particularly Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) with no online presence. In an interview, Mr Ngaiti said e-commerce service was provided through Ponatshego.com website which accord SMEs with a platform that would encourage and upgrade them from operating in a traditional brick and mortar way of doing business to an online base market.

He said through the website, vendors were given a chance to order, market and sell their products to their customers online. He said the platform also offered an affiliate market program, adding unemployed individuals or those without products to sell were allowed to join and earn a commission by selling Ponatshego products on different social media platforms.

“Most SMEs had been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, and though the lockdown was long lifted, allowing businesses to operate under ‘new normal,’ some still are still challenged to fully reach their other customers not in the vicinity of their physical stores hence the birth of online market place to close the gap.” he said.

Mr Ngaiti said e-commerce was a fairly new concept for most vendors locally, hence they strived to come up with a website that would be easy to navigate through, giving a quick response so as to continue to lure in more customers.

He said the interactive website offered customers informative video clips on product on sale, allowing customers to know more about products.

He said while the business started during lock down, they were content that it had gained the desired momentum. “Monetary profits we generated since inception of the business prove that we are on the right direction.

We managed to exceed the target we had set,” he said.

He further said they successfully delivered orders to and from South Africa and Namibia and their dream was to spread across Southern Africa region and internationally to grow cliental database. Mr Ngaiti attributed the speedy recognition of the business to social media, which he believed played a major role in getting the idea to the people.

Additionally he said though their target was SMMEs, they were open to work with other business entities that would need their service. While challenges are always part of every business idea, Mr Ngaiti said in efforts to beat up theirs, he used experience gained from an e-commerce related training he underwent in 2019. ENDS