How Africa Can Utilize The Internet to Reach Best Markets

A farmer producing the best tomatoes in rural Africa may end up returning them back to the farm as manure in rotten form. The simple explanation to this desperate state is that the farmer has no exposure to markets and the complex explanation is that there is actually great market for the tomatoes-unknown to the farmer! The farmer in this case is the producer and the market is the consumer. Connecting these two important points of business is perhaps the golden lesson of business that Africa must now yearn to acquire. But even before the lesson comes, some effort must be done to make it known that Internet is a window to a market of more than 1 billion people.

While the Internet stands out as the greatest invention of this century especially for business, the sad question around the topic of poor Africa is still hard to answer. Not many of us in Africa appreciate the potential that comes with internet utilization. Many businesses in Africa do not understand just what it means to have a real-time website displaying what they have to offer-leave alone what it entails. Believe in the traditional ways of marketing and exposing products, which are always limited to a few kilometers of radius from their point of production or operation, is still at large.

Displaying your products in the internet, gives users a chance to view them from all corners of the world. If your business is selling fish for example and you decide to display your best fish at ‘www.fishbest.com’ then a fish joint in Kenya as well as South Africa will have an equal chance to see what you have to offer. The beauty of it is that they will do it on the same platform and sometimes even same time. Now imagine receiving a call from Singapore asking you to supply some good tones of fish and another from a group of tourists interested in having a test of local fish!

Such are the dynamic sceneries of opportunity that the internet presents. If you don’t believe then next time you may need to catch up with a tourist and ask how they get to compare options and settle on the best places to visit and in which hotels to spend. Despite all the risks that come across the internet, the benefits are huge and real. After all, it’s taking risks that differentiates doing business from trying to do business.