Social Media Communities

Social Media Platforms are some of the best business platforms on the internet. They work best for someone selling quick or small products. Almost any product can be sold through social media quickly than any other product listing service because most social media platforms have an active audience.

Social Media Platforms are websites that allow people to connect with one another mainly for social purposes.

  Examples of social media platforms are Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, Instagram, etc. 

Most products on social media are sold through, social media communities, which are the smaller groups made up of people with a common interest.

For example: someone starts a group, a group administrator, on a platform like Facebook, and the aim of that group is to connect people who are interested in buying or selling Expensive Used Weaves in Zimbabwe, and every time someone posts about expensive used weaves, almost everyone in the group sees what one user of the group has said about used weaves. 

That’s just an example of a social media community. There are many groups on social media platforms.

I’m sure you have been in at least on one social media platform group in your life time. If you have never used one, you can just search on google or any other search engine for a term like ‘groups on Facebook about entrepreneurs in my area’ or any of your interests, and you will be led to loads of results you can make use of.  

If you have products or services you are selling, you can search for groups meant for people in Zimbabwe, and specifically your area if available. (For usually the buyer and the seller might have to travel in order to meet up for the trade to take place, just google search for precautions to take before meeting anyone). 

Examples of social communities you could make use of:

Bid Sites Buy &Sell    

Bidding Wars BuyAndSellZimbabwe    

Bidding Wars (PurchaseMate - Buy $ Sell) Zimbabwe Buy and Sell    

‎Bidding Wars Zimbabwe Buying and Selling Zimbabwe 263  

Three steps to selling on a Social Media Platform

You have a product or service for sale (You want to reach a bigger audience through social search)

You join, or create a group and invite people interested in that kind of service or products

You make posts about your products

Niche Store

I recommend that you go with the Niche Store Strategy for quicker gains in the market.

It is the best strategy for new payers in the market, and definitely the best small and successful E-commerce stores.

Niche (or specific market) refers to products, services, or interests that appeal to a small, specialized section of people.

The Idea Behind A Niche Store

You have less competition, (since you’re targeting a smaller, specific market, chances are that there is less or zero competition)

You will rank higher quickly on search engines, meaning people will come across your goods in small space of time. 

You will get loyal customers overtime, if the customers get attached to your products or services and feel that their expectations are met with what’s on offer, a return for more is quite obvious.

Here is a list of lessons on how to start a Niche Store 

How to Start a Successful Online Store (Hint: Nail Your Niche)

General Store vs Niche Store(Should You Build a Niche or General Store?)

What should you sell online (What Should You Sell Online?)

Good examples of niche stores you could take a look at:

Luxy Hair 

Cuppow 

E-commerce Services 

If you are not willing to go through the trouble of creating a store on your own, you might sell on an existing e-commerce service that allows you to post your products or services without you having         to create anything.

Good examples for you to do that will be:

Flexi Africa (local platform, knows your market very well, you can become a vendor on the website)(Become a vendor here)

Aliexpress (Become a seller)  

Amazon (Become a seller)

Local ‘bid’ sites

Another way to get buyers quickly if you have physical products is using local bid sites 

A good example for that is Econet’s Bid Buddie, the down side before I get into details about the platform is that you have to pay a service fee, though it’s just a tiny fee, just that free things on the internet are usually the best. Not that I really pay for anything.

Bid Buddie is one of Econet’s e-commerce platform, which is an online auction. On Bid Buddie you can sell almost any kinds of goods, from thing that you no longer need, or things you already have for sale. 

Buyers are the ‘bidders’, these are customers who compete to put place the highest price for the products that are for sale.   

You can get started with with selling on the platform through downloading and installing the Bid Buddie application on this link.

Don’t Have Anything To Sell On An E-commerce Store?

Here’s a strategy named drop-shipping meant for entrepreneurs who do not yet have products or services of their own to sell. It’s Called Drop-shipping.

What is drop-shipping?

Drop-shipping is a selling method where an online-store doesn’t keep, or at times have the products that are for sale in their stock (stock – where shops keep products). The store lists the products for sale, giving as much details as possible, pictures, weight, whatever necessary detail.

 Figure : Snippet Extracted From Movie Scarface 

When the store sells the product, it purchases the item from the original product seller and has it sent 

directly to a customer.

The store has a mark-up set on the original price from which profits will be realized, for example, the customer pays, ZW$49.99cents to the store, then the store gets the product for ZW$39.99 from the original seller and leaving out ZW$10.00 as their profit.

On the internet, on an online store, the store never sees or handles the product.

In Steps Here’s How Drop-shipping Works 

Customer buys product from your store

You forward order details to the supplier and make payment

  (You look for supplier on huge e-commerce stores like Amazon, Alibaba, Buy China, E-Bay,    

and More according to your what you’re serving)

The original seller sends the goods to the customer directly

 Figure : Illustration By Oberlo 

Steps On How to start a drop-shipping store learn here 

Decide your product

Create an e-commerce store

Add Product Inventory (Photos of the product, and full information of the product)

Start Marketing