Month: August 2019

The E-commerce wave is rapidly moving over Africa in recent times, albeit with its problems. Africans are generally not fond of buying items online due to fraud and trust issues. However, modern technology is making this trend attractive to the young generation, and the adoption is quite impressive.

Today we’ll take a look at some of the top Ecommerce sites in Ghana. We’ll consider two main things for each platform:

• Delivery options each provides
• Source of items

This list is in no particular order or preference. Let’s dive in.

Jumia

Jumia is by far the most popular Ecommerce website in Ghana. They sell items in almost all sorts of categories ranging from electronics to baby products. It has come to be the most popular Ecommerce site known by many Ghanaians. Jumia’s vision is to revolutionize the shopping experience in Africa.

Delivery Options

“The delivery time starts from the day you place your order to the day one of our delivery associates makes a first attempt to deliver to you.”
– Jumia Delivery

Source Of Items
Most of the items on Jumia are from local businesses that are referred to as Merchants. Some of the items are however shipped from abroad. Such items have a “Jumia Global” tag on them.

Have you shopped on Jumia before? What was your experience like?
Visit jumia.com.gh 

Zoobashop

Zoobashop is a Ghanaian-based online shop promising the best deals on electronics, home appliances, fashion, and accessories. They offer the aforementioned products, all under one virtual roof.

Delivery Options

Zoobashop.com currently delivers 6 days a week (Monday through Saturday), to addresses in Accra and Tema.

Delivery occurs between 09:00AM and 6:30PM, Monday through Friday, and 09:00AM to 2:00PM on Saturdays.

Orders with a total value under the value GH¢ 350 will attract a delivery fee, depending on the customer’s choice of delivery. All orders above GH¢ 350 would be delivered free of charge, but would unless otherwise stated, be treated as Standard Delivery.
– Zoobashop Delivery

Source Of Items

Since it’s a Ghanaian-owned platform, all its items are locally based, unlike Jumia that imports some of theirs.
Visit zoobashop.com

Hubtel Mall

The Hubtel mall was launched less than a year ago but has received massive adoption from users. Hubtel has some of the best deals when it comes to electronics from big brands like Samsung and Nasco. If you are ever out to shop for a new phone, try Hubtel mall. Chances are you’ll get a great deal.

Delivery Options
Hubtel handles all its delivery through its own in-house delivery service – Hubtel Carforce. Being able to control the delivery means we’re able to fulfill our 60-minute delivery promise to users. It’s the first online shop that guarantees that when you order a box of pizza, you’ll get it while it’s hot.
– Hubtel Careforce

Source Of Items
Hubtel signs up businesses that own stores, on the mall. This means all the items in the mall are from local businesses. This gives users the best quality items only.
Have you shopped at the Hubtel mall before? Try out today at hubtel.com/mall
You can also download the app from the App Store or Google Play Store.

Caution: This is not your average long list post (of delivery services). If you want an actual long list of delivery services in Ghana, check this page by GhanaYellow: They do a good job of listing all the major delivery companies in Ghana.

I’m here to introduce Hubtel’s own delivery service called Careforce. Sounds familiar? No? Read on then

Hubtel Careforce

Now consider this scenario: An Ecommerce platform that handles its own delivery service. Sounds pretty much like a well thought-out plan. And it is!

The catch here is this: deliver to the customer in 60 minutes or less.
When you shop on the Hubtel Mall, you get your items on the same day – within 60 minutes. Amazon has something similar called FreeSameDay but works a bit differently. Plus it only works for selected items and locations.

This is the power of the Hubtel Careforce – a network of delivery agents within an area close to where you shop from. Any business who has products listed on Hubtel has access to this fast delivery service.
What this means for you as a business is that, you get to focus more on selling while Hubtel Careforce takes care of all your delivery needs.

If you are a buyer, you get the assurance of getting your items within 60 minutes of purchasing on the Hubtel Mall.

Give It A Spin

Have you shopped on the Hubtel Mall yet? Time to give it a spin. Clothes, phones, electronics, food (yes food) all on your phone or at hubtel.com/mall

Time to do some shopping!

So before we dive in, have this in mind: The word “best” as used in this post is relative. You’ll find out why. Just keep reading.
Atlas and Boots has this comprehensive breakdown of global internet rank. Check it out here.

The Case of Internet Bundles In Ghana

It is a known fact that internet bundles in Ghana is very expensive. So in today’s post, I’ll highlight some bundle package I believe are relatively lower than the others. Let’s dive in!

MTN TurboNet Bundles

Surprised? Don’t be. This bundle by MTN is by far the best in my opinion. The usual MTN data bundles are a bit pricey. I’m not sure if this new TurboNet bundle package is here to stay. But it should. I mean, look at this sweet deal!

Data Volume (GB)           Amount (GHC)

5GB                                    20.00

10GB                                  40.00

20GB 75.00

45GB                                  120.00

90GB                                  175.00

225GB                                240.00

550GB                                395.00

Want to enjoy this sweetness? Grab a router from the mall here.

Vodafone Special Offer Bundles

I believe Vodafone introduced this as a way to get more subscribers for Vodafone Cash. At this point, it really doesn’t matter. As long it’s a sweet deal, I’m for it. It’s available for Vodafone Cash users only.
The bundle lasts for just 24 hours (which is strange but ok) at a price of either GHS1 (500MB) and GHS2 (1.5GIG)

Here’s how to get this “Special Offer”.
Dial *110#
Choose Option 3 
Choose Option 3 – Special Offers
Select either 1 or 2
Choose a package
Enter your Vodafone Cash pin to confirm

Once you are done, you get to enjoy the offer for the next 24 hours.

There are other bundle options for other networks, but these two came up as the best in my opinion. Got any in mind you want to share? Drop it in the comments. After all, we all need sweet data packages.

It’s 2019. Everyone wants fast internet! You are either on a blazing Broadband connection or a fast 4G internet connection. This is where the MTN TurboNet Router shines – A morph of broadband and 4G LTE.

Every new tech has its own pros and cons. Heck even the internet itself has its own issues.

Today we take a look at one of Ghana’s leading internet and telecommunications service providers MTN. We’re particularly looking at their newly introduced internet solution – the Turbonet router: the pros and cons of it (and some freebies).

To make this as practical and truthful as possible, we had some chats with a few current users of the device. We’ll be summarizing their views based on the data packages, internet speed, and customer service. These categories were based on the views they expressed during the “interview”. 

Pros Of The MTN TurboNet Router

Initial Device Setup

It’s a plug-and-play device so setting up is a walk in the park. Plug it in, turn it on, and start surfing. Since it comes with 5GIG free data, you don’t even have to worry about purchasing data initially. 5GIG is not much but it should give you something to test the blazing fast speed with.

Free Data For 6 Months

Remember the free 5GIG data I mentioned above? You get it every month for the next 6 months. Yep. For all the freebie lovers out there, this one is for you!

Bonus On Every Topup
More goodies! For every top-up you make on the TurboNet Router, you get an extra 50% bonus data free! This does put a smile on everyone’s face. I’m not surprised our interviewees enjoyed this. I mean come on, who wouldn’t? 

From the information we gathered from our interviewees, it appears the pros far out way the cons. Nonetheless, every tech has got its own wahala. Let’s dive right into what they said.
But before we do, don’t forget to check out the full device specs from the Hubtel Mall here: MTN TurboNet Router 
Bonus: Get free delivery and GHS10 cashback when you purchase today!

Cons of The MTN Turbonet Router

Initial Bundle Activation
Most of them mentioned that they had a hard time getting the initial free bundle. It turns out that sometimes it takes a while for your free 5GIG to hit your account. But once you pass this first encounter, it’s a smooth sail from here on. I actually experienced this myself as I had to call their customer helpline to get this activated.

In Conclusion
I personally use the MTN TurboNet Router at home. The only issue I have is the fact that the data runs out so quick! Maybe I stream a lot on YouTube. Should I qualify this as a Pro or a Con? 

While you think of an answer, don’t forget to grab one today from the Hubtel mall. You’ll love it!

Three years ago, Alex Bram had an idea. The idea was quite simple. He believed there should be an app that connected users to their favorite brands. This connection was quite different and novel, in the sense that users would have the power to purchase digital services from these brands; and review them as well for the kind of service they received. Also, it had a mix of loyalty where users were rewarded every time a digital service was purchased. This was meant to create a positive feedback loop that would keep customers coming back for more. Someway somehow it worked and we all enjoy it to this day.

For this idea to come alive a team of engineers was assembled (sort of like the Avengers. These guys did not have superpowers).
At that point in time, Hubtel’s focus was on businesses and the core of our product was business-facing, so most of the engineering effort and time were put in that direction. This team that was formed was as agile as you can imagine.

These were the members and their roles as of then:

1. Alex Bram (Part-time Project Manager)
2. Selassie Afenya (Team Lead)
3. Liman Labaran (Backend Developer)
4. Paul Gamedzi (Front End Developer > Backend Engineer)
5. Bill Inkoom (Android Developer)
6. Emmanuel Rockson (Visual Designer)

Since we were free to do what we wanted, we chose a different stack as opposed to what Hubtel was using – Microsoft Framework. We went Laravel. On the business platform, Hubtel had users and businesses but because we were building a side app, we created our own users. We also created our own brands and basically created everything that our little platform needed. The app was launched to the public on Hubtel’s birthday, 12th May (2017). We started work on it around July 2016. It was initially named Hubtel Exchange then we did not like that name so we changed it to Hubtel Connect. Then we didn’t like that name either so we changed it to Hubtel Gratis. But Apple said no to that name so we chose Hubtel.me and we got fed up and just removed the .me so now it’s just Hubtel.

The app released to the public was really simple: you could buy airtime and pay some bills and get great rewards for doing that. We started with a few users: less than a hundred. Our daily transaction volumes were in hundreds of cedis a day. We had no ads or no big promotion plans in mind. We wanted the dream of virality, to build a system so good that it would sell itself. As time went on our users increased in number and the volumes came with it. We steadily climbed to GHS 100,000 a month and crossed the 1000-user mark, then we hit a million Ghana cedis in transactions (“a milli, a milli” in Lil Wayne’s voice). That was great.

The fire sort of died down a little bit because we had become another credit-selling and bill-paying app ( a sect of apps that are just waiting to be slaughtered by the Industry Giants (Banks and MTN).

Then Patrick Asare-Frimpong joined Hubtel and for the very first time, we had a full-time Project Manager. He brought fresh energy and new ideas.

The next few months were exciting: we worked on Gift-cards; we worked on fraud prevention and we built our beloved Sophie. She is truly a darling. Sophie is certainly one of a kind, she is a fully automated bot that can process natural language and give level-headed replies. At first, she was just cracking jokes and giving people Hubtel’s phone number. Well, Patrick disagreed and insisted we equip Sophie to become Hubtel’s first Automated Support (RoboSupport). It worked! Sophie can now reverse transactions when issues are reported to her. Her database of possible questions has grown making her a great support personnel to talk to all the time.

Then came a powerful alliance with marketing to create the potential future of Hubtel – the Mobile Mall and Car4ce. Around this time most of the earlier comrades had left and new comrades had entered the scene.

• Max Cofie
• Andy Nickson
• Sam Eshun With a new team and more motivation, work on the mall and CareForce was completed.

A New Dawn

That was the past, and now Hubtel looks to the future. The fragmentation of Hubtel Consumers and Hubtel Businesses will be no more. We all look ahead to forge one story where consumers can go through a Hubtel journey that’s clear as distilled water. A future where the Hubtel app owns no users, owns no streams, owns no transactions and owns no data, and owns no algorithms. A future where everything belongs to the Hubtel platform, allowing us to build many meaningful apps for our lovely customers.

Article by: Bill Nkoom – Software Engineer at Hubtel

Hubtel wins three awards at the just ended GITTA Awards ceremony, held on Friday June 28, 2019.

• Fintech Company of the Year
• Fintech CEO of the Year (Alex Bram)
• Emerging eCommerce Initiative of the Year

About GITTA Awards 

Now in its 9th year, the Ghana Information Technology & Telecom Awards (GITTA) is the most prestigious awards program in the industry. Most times called the “Oscar Awards”, it recognizes innovation and excellence. GITTA 2019, which has an independent panel of industry experts as judges, recognized organizational performances, products, services, innovations, executives and management teams, women in ICT, and CSR initiatives.

GITTA has become one of the industry’s most prized honours. It is an accolade given to individuals and teams and is a vindication of the hard work, innovation and dedication of those at the forefront of this dynamic global profession.

It was an awesome day at the office today as we hosted reps from the MTN Global Graduate Programme.

During a Q&A session, the team engaged with some staff to learn more about what Hubtel does. The visit to Hubtel was part of their ongoing training in the MTN Global Graduate Programme.

The staff from Hubtel that led the Q&A sessions were:

About MTN Global Graduate Programme

MTN’s Global Graduate Development Programme seeks to source, develop, and accelerate top graduates from across MTN’s footprint in Africa and the Middle East. The programme offers a privileged experience that fast-tracks talented individuals into critical roles at MTN.

The MTN Graduate Development Programme combines both formal development in partnership with Duke Corporate Education and the MTN Academy, as well as on-the-job development through full employment and placement into a strategically aligned role.

The formal component includes modules at MTN’s 3 regional learning centres, located in Southern, Northern and Western Africa.

Bulk SMS Services In Ghana

Bulk SMS is a must for any business looking to reach its customers faster. When you want to send messages to customers and even leads, SMS is your first best option.

Hubtel provides an easy way for you to send messages online using just your browser. Our online portal for messages (Notify) is a simple interface that anyone can use to send messages to their leads and customers. It also comes with an option to personalize your messages.

USSD Service

2-way messaging is also a feature that we support. You can use this to send messages and get replies from your recipients at any time. If you need USSD service in addition, you can refer to this guide on how to get one. With a USSD code service, your customers can interact with your business regardless of the phone they use.

Ready to sign up for our bulk SMS service?

Visit hubtel.com to create an account now.

Once you log in, click on Notify. This is the bulk SMS service you will use to send all your SMS messages

First, you need to top-up your Hubtel credit and purchase an SMS bundle.

Once you are done with the top-up, head back to the Notify page and start your bulk SMS campaign. Simply follow the on-screen instructions to get started.

USSD service is now readily available everywhere. Developers and companies alike have come to like this service due to its ease of use and fast deployment times. The question then is: how do you get the best USSD provider in Ghana, and how do you get the service?

Hubtel USSD Service

Hubtel provides an easy way for developers to build and deploy their apps on USSD.

There are different types of USSD codes with various capabilities to meet your needs. Hubtel is the best USSD service provider in Ghana.

There are three types of USSD Codes available to you on Hubtel:

Dedicated Codes

A dedicated USSD code is typically owned by one account. It has only one segment. Eg *714#. You can add as many subcodes (extensions) as possible. It is more expensive than the other types of USSD codes. To purchase a dedicated code, kindly contact any of our friendly sales personnel for more information at [email protected].

Semi-Dedicated Codes

A semi-dedicated code is dedicated to one account but shared among other accounts. The owner of the semi-dedicated service code can create as many extensions as possible. You can contact any of our friendly sales personnel for more information on acquiring a semi-dedicated code at [email protected].

Shared Codes

A shared code is a code that is shared among different users. This option is less expensive and the most preferred one. You can add as many subcode (extensions) as possible. Eg *713*20*xxx#. You can search and buy a shared USSD service code from your Hubtel account. You can request for a shared code directly from your Hubtel Unity account.

Follow this link to apply for a USSD code today.