Now You Can Shop On Ownai And Get Your Deliveries With Vaya Express

Vaya express hopper

Cassava SmarTech is not relenting in its effort to take lion’s share of all emergent business models like e-commerce, ride-hailing etc. In its quest for domination, it is leveraging on partnerships and collaborations between some of its companies. The latest collaboration is not only between 2 of its subsidiaries but 3 (ownai, EcoCash, and VayaExpress). And they partner in a way that will possibly make it easier to do online shopping on ownai. A message I received from Econet said:


Enjoy the convinience of shopping online, paying with EcoCash & getting deliveries by Vaya Express…

Yes, you can now buy your stuff on ownai, pay with EcoCash and then get them delivered to you with Vaya Express. How’s that sound? And dont forget that you’d have used Econet’s (a Cassava SmarTech linked company) data to get to the ownai site and also to use the Vaya app. This way Cassava SmarTech keeps all the profits to itself rather than share with an outside entity not related to it. Imagine if Cassava SmarTech owned ownai only, and not Ecocash and Vaya. In that case, Cassava SmarTech (through ownai) would have to halve its profits by sharing them with outside entities that are like Ecocash or Vaya (Maybe Telecash or Mutumwa). Besides the profit element, by using its own subsidiaries to uplift other subsidiaries, Cassava SmarTech is able to manage the whole process and customer experience of getting goods to customers instead of depending on some company they dont have a really good common ground with.


However, the problem of what Cassava SmarTech is doing is that if one of its companies messes things up, all Cassava SmarTech-related companies will gain a bad reputation and possibly affect them in the long term. But I suppose that’s a western-world conversation because in Zimbabwe (and Africa I guess) we don’t have a lot of options such that when a certain company screws things up we can turn to other companies to offer us the same product/service.

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5 thoughts on “Now You Can Shop On Ownai And Get Your Deliveries With Vaya Express

  1. Haha there no customer service in Zim… You won’t really have a choice plus if it’s zero rated ppl will let it go… Plus with the fuel shortage it’s a no brained… It’s amazing how government has directly supported Econet unwittingly

  2. credit to Cassava where its due. this really is forward thinking. whoever is making these moves over there, is worth his/her weight in gold

    1. What is their core business? Why not promote young entrepreneurs so we can have more billionaires in Zimbabwe 🤷🏾‍♂️

  3. This is a monopolistic business model. If these are separate companies, then other players should get equal access to Econet’s platform, but alas this won’t happen. The net neutrality argument also comes about, as access to Ownai is zero-rated, creating a competitive edge over other e-commerce platforms. It’s not fair business, it’s being a monopoly! The CTC just sits idly by, twidling their fingers.

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