People buying food with ZASH — vendor pilot
Dear ZIMBOCASH Family
Just over a month ago, we announced an exciting collaboration with ZiTenga to provide stores with a cash-out facility for ZASH purchases.
Supermarket accepting ZASH
As part of this, on the 11th of April, PW Trading, a supermarket in Njube in Bulawayo began accepting ZASH as payments for goods. We have been so excited to tell you that this pilot has been immensely successfully with literally thousands of transactions in the store.
Here are the details — you can go in-store and buy up to USD 2 of goods, such as rice, mealie meal or sugar, using ZASH. There is a daily limit of the number of users who can use ZASH in the store so there has been some amount of excitement with people queuing.
Here’s the store in Njube.
We are so pleased to announce our first store that accepts ZASH for goods! Its been an epic month of our pilot. pic.twitter.com/zzOsaAwc1E
— ZIMBOCASH (@zimbocash) May 19, 2022
People are queuing at the store.
Many are queuing at the store to buy goods for ZASH. pic.twitter.com/S1K5YsjWQt
— ZIMBOCASH (@zimbocash) May 19, 2022
Easy pay with ZASH.
People can buy goods by making a simple payment or scanning the QR code at the till. pic.twitter.com/m7FVRvgMDB
— ZIMBOCASH (@zimbocash) May 19, 2022
People purchasing rice and pasta with ZASH.
Our pilot is based in Njube where we’ve seen hundreds of people gathering at the store to buy their daily necessities in exchange for ZASH. pic.twitter.com/tEBytA7qfq
— ZIMBOCASH (@zimbocash) May 19, 2022
Because it was a pilot, we did not tell anyone but on the first day we saw over 57 people come in to buy goods with their ZASH. The following day, through word of mouth, the transaction numbers doubled! There have been queues outside the store, where hundreds of people are wanting to buy basic foods using their ZASH.
We have had big crowds gathering wanting to sign up to the ZIMBOCASH network and hear more about us.
Our tech team asked us to do a soft launch for the first month so we could monitor the system. The system is working well.
ZiTenga is currently investigating vendors on one of the large university campuses and in the Bulawayo city-centre informal market.
If you are a vendor and would like to be a part of the “ZASH accepted here” program with the cash-out option at a fixed USD rate, you will be able to sign up in due course. We ask for your patience as we work on making this happen.
Our focus is on stores that have a physical presence in communities, with adequate access to the internet, who provide agricultural foodstuffs (mealie meal, rice, etc) from suppliers who are based in Zimbabwe.
Next steps
As part of the vendor pilot, we are working on several additional steps:
1. We are simplifying our rewards program. If you sign up, you will get $8 worth of ZASH and $0.8 for every person you refer using your referral code.
2. We are removing all other rewards going forward.
3. **If you have not verified yourself, it is now almost a year since we enabled verification. All old rewards will fall away. If you previously signed up, but have not verified your account, you need to do so now. After 1 June 2022, anyone who verifies their account will receive $8 worth of ZASH as a sign up reward and $0.8 per referral.**
4. People have been asking us how they can get more ZASH. ZiTenga is busy working on a “Buy Now” service which we will be providing in your ZASH wallet. The goal is for people to be able to buy more ZASH using Zimbabwe dollars, South African Rand and US dollars. Stay posted.
Massive inflation
People are living in extreme economic pain in Zimbabwe right now. When we started the vendor cash-out program, the street rate was approximately 230 Zimbabwe dollars to the US dollar. Today, it is 380. In a few short weeks, the value of people’s money has deteriorated by almost 65%.
With the enormous American money printing schemes currently under way, food prices have been rising, in US dollar terms. People are getting really poor very quickly. The war in Eastern Europe is also putting food supplies at risk.
We believe that there is only one solution to the problem of inflation in Zimbabwe. The solution is sound money i.e. fixing the supply of money so that there can be no more money printing. This is what the ZIMBOCASH project is all about.
Our heart and passion is to transform Zimbabwe with sound money! Make no mistake, what we are attempting to achieve is audacious — we are creating the future. It has never been done before so there are no precedents for what we are building. There are many things that could wrong. Many people have told us we cannot do it. But there has never been a more critical time for us to succeed.
If we succeed, Zimbabwe will become the Switzerland of Africa. Hold on to your seats as we are in for an exciting ride!
If you have not yet signed up to receive your free ZASH, you can do so at: www.zimbo.cash/register.
You can also sign up when you download the ZASH app.
Kind regards
The ZIMBOCASH Team
