When we launched Sarafu, a B2B commerce app enabling retail FMCG shops to place customer orders for supplies via smartphone, most shop owners in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, were initially hesitant.
Few were familiar with app-based ordering, and many did not have smartphones. Their preference was to call someone to place their order, which has been the ordering habit since mobile phones became prevalent more than 15 years ago.
We ignored the request from our target market and did not establish call-centre ordering (although we do have a call centre for customer service).
We needed to change how shop owners ordered their supplies to achieve our envisioned scale. Instead of a call centre, we built a team of sales agents to train shop owners on downloading and using the Sarafu app to place orders.
The phone-based ordering habit was so ingrained in the shop owners’ day-to-day psyche that in the early days of operating Sarafu, customers would call the sales agents and ask them to log into their accounts and place orders.
Such is the resistance to change in an informal market like the supply of FMCG.
The chart below indicates transaction numbers by hour for customers placing orders on the Sarafu app about a year ago, in March 2020. Most transactions occur between 7 a.m. and 1 p.m., the typical ordering time for a retail shop.
Transactions peak around 10 a.m. because the cutoff for same-day delivery is 11 a.m., so shop owners try to get their products before the end of the day. There is a slight increase in transactions after 8 p.m.
Remember, before Sarafu, all customer orders must be placed during business hours because they require a phone call to a distributor to inquire about inventory and price.
As customers become increasingly comfortable with app-based ordering, they also become increasingly interested in the different opportunities the app affords them.
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The following is a similar chart except about one year later, in March 2021. Here, you can see shop owners continue to place most of their orders before the 11 am same-day delivery cut-off, but a significant shift occurred concerning orders placed after 7 pm. A much larger percentage of shop owners are now placing orders at night.
Placing orders in the evening has a few advantages:
- Do not distract from servicing customers during the day.
- Allows the retailers to receive their products first thing in the morning before customers arrive.
- Retailers can assess inventory after a full day of sales and place orders accordingly.
The data demonstrates that many retail shop owners prefer placing their orders late at night, something they could never do before digital ordering.
Now consider the following: If we did a comprehensive survey before launching Sarafu and asked customers if they would prefer to purchase products
- by an app that allows them to make orders at night or
- by phone during business hours
Most (including the ones now ordering at night) would request phone ordering.
They never comprehended the possibility of ordering at night because online ordering was foreign: something people do in the US and Europe but not quite relevant to their reality.
Retail shop owners are not interested in understanding the implications of technology; they are interested in getting the products they need when needed. Looking into the digital future does not keep them up at night.
In this case, behaviour change was driven in a multi-step, iterative process:
First, we forced them to order via an app by eliminating the phone option while providing enough incentive (through price and quick delivery) to try Sarafu.
We provided a relatively low-risk opportunity for the shop owners to see the potential benefits.
Second, we shifted their behaviour once they understood app-based ordering. They absorbed the lived experience of what it means to order through a smartphone.
Changing customer behaviour sometimes requires you to not listen to your customers. Instead, follow a vision for where your customers can go but cannot.
Many retail shop owners initially avoided signing up for Sarafu because they did not have smartphones. Many new customers are purchasing one to take advantage of the service.
