Comments on: eBay’s Marketplace for African “Pity Products”

By: Annansi Chronicles » What’s your Africa strategy?

Annansi Chronicles » What’s your Africa strategy? — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 16:04:52 +0000

[...] picture and realize that Africa’s development is tied to their own long term goals and the goals of their customer. You can promote “Save Darfur” t-shirts but if the shirt is made in China, your company [...]

By: Shanti Braford

Shanti Braford — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 13:16:40 +0000

This post reminds me of my Dad and his habit of buying everyone’s christmas presents each year from Plowshare & Crafts. I have no problem with people buying legit goods & services from Africa (or wherever).

But he buys this crap and foists it on people who have no need or desire for it. Sure it helps Africa’s GDP but the West’ll just end up with a bunch of white elephants!

By: bankelele

bankelele — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 07:29:03 +0000

With a payment/finance platform, there will be no need for ‘special rules’. There’s no paypal here

By: Great Article on the Massive Chinese Push into Africa | White African

Great Article on the Massive Chinese Push into Africa | White African — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 12:15:09 +0000

[...] is exactly what I’m talking about with the eBay push into Africa and other high risk, high opportunity regions. This is exactly why Mwenda and Bono were hashing it [...]

By: ForgetPC

ForgetPC — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 16:42:35 +0000

I think we are all getting to sensative.

We need to accept that as things stand at the moment we can’t just go out there an be competitive eg our lack of infrastructure makes transport costs excessive & we don’t have technology support systems to introduce whats standard out there.

We don’t have to apologise for this and don’t have to feel its a slight when this type of shortcoming is identified.

Lets use the offers with the clear objective of fixing what’s holding us back, so that we can be part of this new world.

By: qDot

qDot — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 11:27:00 +0000

You are SPOT ON !

I think it will take a long long time for the world to view African suppliers as competitive suppliers. There are many people around the world who cannot 5 countries on the continent. We are seen as that dark continent where everyone is destitute and everyone is a beggar.

What can we do though as Africans to do this ?
Maybe we should start a http://www.AfricaMatters.com and ask the blogosphere to put a banner across their blogs similar to the ‘make-poverty-history’ banner. In order to drive traffic to that site where the world can see all the positive contributions out of Africa and all the success stories ?

By: Afromusing

Afromusing — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 06:59:44 +0000

One of the TED fellows Nii Simmonds has a website that does just what Ebay wants to do in Africa. It would serve ebay well to check out http://www.enubia.com/index.php and partner with people like him.

By: Alex

Alex — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 06:44:25 +0000

This view of Africa is very insulting. You have been around the continent and yes there is corruption; yes there is poverty; and yes we’re not a whole lot developed in comparison. But we are CAPABLE! Have you seen the acceleration brought about by more accessible Internet? And mobile communication? What we need is not pity. What we need is opportunity and information. The rest we can figure out.

We have people right this moment racking their brains on how to begin an eBay, a Paypal, a Sega right here. And some of them are well on their way. So you’re right on target that those who wish to be part of the success story are better off making alliances. Charity will not be rejected, but that is not where Africa’s information age billions lie.