Naspers builds Olx brand in Kenya with TV show

Naspers-owned general classifieds platform Olx launched a reality show on in Kenyan television stations to build awareness for the brand and win clients’ trust. The first episode was aired on July 1.
The show is hosted by popular local comedian Eric Omondi, who can also be seen once a week in a Kenyan stand-up comedy show called the Churchill Live show. The Olx reality show, which will run for the entire month of July, is aired on Kenya’s most popular stations, including  NTV, KTN, K24 and Citizen TV. According to sources, Oxl Kenya received 30 million KES ($25.5 million U.S.) for its marketing campaigns in 2013.
The first show explained to consumers how to upload an ad on the Olx mobile site, and related success stories of ads placed.
“With the reality show we created awareness of our groundbreaking service to the Kenyan consumer. The show did not only provide entertainment for the viewers, but it also offered some sort of education with useful tips on how to make money on the Olx platform,” said Olx Kenya country manager Peter Ndiangúi to Lifestyle magazine (article and photo of Omondi here).
Olx be accessed on the stationary PC, and by phone, making it very useful for Africa, where the mobile phone is popular. Oxl Kenya competes with other international players, including Junk Mail Kenya (here) and Ringier Kenya (with Pigiame.co.ke). Users can buy and sell a wide range of used products on the platform, including used household goods.
Many Kenyans are aware of online classifieds, but they don’t understand how to use it and how it works. Now that the government is ready to roll out the national broadband network, more Kenyans will be able to access the Internet and engage in e-commerce activities.
The markets for classified verticals is wide open in Kenya. Although the competition is stiff, Oxl Kenya is best known, and currently boasts more than 138,000 listings.

Written by lawrence wambua

Competition heats up in Kenya’s job market

Brightermonday.com, the jobs vertical belonging to One Africa Media (OAM) that is dominating the Kenyan market with over 3,100 listings, might face stiffer competition soon. South African media giant Naspers, which has been targeting the lower end of the market with its general classifieds portal OLX Kenya, launched Career24.co.ke in April 2013. It’s a clone of the successful South African job portal Careers24 that belongs to Naspers subsidiary Media24. Rumors spread today that Career24.co.ke was looking to hire local staff. So far, the portal has been operated by staff in South Africa.
For Careers24 to grow in the Kenyan market, it has to go this way. At the moment it has only 89 listings, mostly vacancies at blue chip companies – and those listings were duplicated from OXL Kenya to boot.
Hiring local staff to handle its operation in Kenya would help in many ways, for example, to sort the jobs by geographic location. So far the categories look quite funny to Kenyans. “Cities” mentioned on Career24.co.ke, such as Huruma (87  jobs), Milimani (87 jobs ), Nyali (87 jobs ), Pioneer (87 jobs), or South C (89 jobs) are indeed estates within Nairobi city - not cities on their own.

Written by lawrence wambua

Source source http://aimgroup.com

Could Carmido change the game in Nigeria?

With over 14,200 listed vehicles One Africa Media-owned Cheki.com.ng is Nigeria’s biggest auto portal. According to Carey Eaton, co-founder of One Africa Media, “Cheki is clearly Nigeria’s No. 1 as measured by total listings, number of new ads listed every month, site traffic, number of autos actually sold, and by all brand recognition metrics”.
Still, when Berlin-based Rocket Internet, the start-up expert managed by the Samwer brothers and co-financed by Swedish investment firm Kinnevik, enters the Nigerian auto market, as it did with Carmido at the end of May this year, the question can justifiably be asked whether the game is about to change.
All the more, since Carmido doesn’t charge for listing, while Cheki does.
A month after its launch Carmido.com.ng had 228 listed vehicles, two months later 421 vehicles. There’s no mobile site. It offers the normal services and features: you can buy or sell new or used autos, motorcycles and commercial vehicles from private users or professional dealers across Nigeria. The site is user-friendly, if not a bit plain, or unspectacular. The choice of name might turn out a bit unfortunate – in East/West Africa many people know Carmido as a kind of bacterial disease.
Eaton is not concerned about the new competitor for Cheki in Nigeria. “We have faced Google, Naspers, Schipsted and Ringier in the past. All entered the market with well-funded platforms. None impacted our market share negatively. So, we will simply continue to focus on what we do well,” he said.
Carmido and Rocket Internet did not respond to our approaches, but vehicle import statistics released by the Nigerian Automobile Manufacturers Association point to why Rocket Internet launched an auto portal in Nigeria.
In the first nine months of last year Nigeria imported 96,629 vehicles, of which 22,192 were new and 74,437 vehicles used. Nigeria also builds vehicles, for instance, at plants of Volkswagen Nigeria and Peugeot Automobile Nigeria. Statistics for total vehicle registrations (imported and locally manufactured) are not available, but from the import stats alone and the fact that Cheki, the biggest auto portal, only has 14,200 vehicles listed, it is clear that offline trade dominates and that online markets offer lots of growth potential.
Carmido probably launched with a free model to build market share. But, costs are high (not only is it free to list, but a Carmido employee travels to the seller to photograph his vehicle/s and then lists it for him) and only two income sources are in place (professional sellers may become “trusted sellers” and/or set up company profile pages).
So, Carmido is under pressure to grow its vehicle listings quickly – or face a review of the free model by financier Rocket Internet.
 

Written by lawrence wambua

Source Source http://aimgroup.com

JobMail tests video CV in South Africa

JobMail.co.za, a big South African job portal with over 800,000 unique visitors per month, introduced video CVs for jobseekers two months ago. The short video clips (preferably not longer than 2 minutes each) help candidates to introduce themselves better to employees and recruiters.
“We have not launched it in other countries in Africa yet. We use South Africa as the testing ground to tweak, improve and see what works and what does not. Then we will consider launching the video CV outside South Africa,” said Angelique Robbertse, JobMail Digital Product Manager at Junk Mail Publishing. The company also operates JobMail.co.ke in Kenya.
“Since our launch about two months ago we have had numerous uploads, but have only approved about 60. We still have to educate our job seekers on how to do this in a professional, advantageous manner,” Robbertse said. “There hasn’t been huge uptake yet, but it certainly is an advantage to have a video on your CV. The potential employer also finds it helpful to see the person, watch his body language and see how he interacts.”
Robbertse admits a video CV is not the one and only tool to give a jobseeker a job, but it certainly gives him an advantage. “Getting your “brand” out there as a jobseeker is becoming more and more social. Companies can google you, and look at your Facebook pages. The video CV isn’t huge yet, but it will be, and since JobMail always looks out for ways to stay ahead of the market, we decided to launch the video CV now.”
JobMail gives some tips on its blog on how to create a perfect video CV. The feedback from jobseekers has been positive so far, and Robbertse is looking forward to hearing the first success story (being well aware that this won’t only be due to the video CV).
JobMail is not the first company in South Africa to offer video CV’s – GetTheJob.co.za, a job portal owned by private company Get The Job (Pty) Ltd, has a similar, free service (look here).
JobMail belongs to Pretoria-based Junk Mail Publishing Group. It is one of the top job portals in South Africa with more than 800,000 unique visitors per month. JobMail is a pioneer in the mobile market as well, being the only job portal that offers a mobile recruitment solution for employers. JobMail is also the only South African job portal with a dedicated print publication focusing solely on jobs.

Written by Lawrence Wambua

Story source  http://aimgroup.com

Jobberman denies allegation of scraping

In the first week of April the free Nigerian job platform HotNigerianJobs.com accused Nigerian job portal Jobberman.com of copying its ads and then “selling them on” to jobseekers (here). The accusation of taking something for free and then selling it has since made waves in Nigeria’s online media.
Jobberman charges jobseekers for full access to job ads and for the ability to apply from the platform. We asked Carey Eaton, co-founder of One Africa Media, his response to the allegation. One Africa Media is a Jobberman shareholder.
According to Eaton there is no truth to the allegation. “This is a total misrepresentation of the facts. Jobberman does not have a policy of scraping ads from anywhere. In fact our position on scraping is well known,” he said.
“Our attempts to reach out to HotNigerianJobs have proved fruitless. It is unfortunate that they are not able to just pick up the phone to resolve the issue, but rather use the media to get some mileage out of it,” he added.
He explained what might have happened. “Jobberman sales staff talk to every advertiser on Jobberman. Quite often advertisers ask us to make life easier for them by using existing copy of particular vacancies on their websites, their HR systems, or on other sources on the Internet,” he said.
Another practice which might have left the impression that Jobberman copies HotNigerianJobs ads:
“Like all sales organizations, members of the sales team are incentivized to find sales leads for new customers. I am sure the team looks at other local job websites, although we do not have any express policy around this. This is a common practice at all websites in our space and pretty much at any sales organization anywhere. I am sure HotNigerianJobs also looks at other sources in this way for new customers,” Eaton said.
“Furthermore, the Terms of Service on its website publicly invites everyone to use the site without restriction (here).
“They said they were OK with Jobberman reposting their ads, but don’t like us charging jobseekers for those jobs. This is also totally misleading. On Jobberman jobseekers can use the site for free up to a certain cap. And we are extending the free access over time, not reducing it,” Eaton said.
The last word in this battle has clearly not been spoken.

Reported by Lawrence Wambua from Nairobi, Kenya.
Story Source http://aimgroup.com/