Chochote popote…. Anything, anywhere!

5 Comments

Months before I came to Kenya I emailed Tracey to ask her for some suggestions for Kenya since she lived here many years ago, has her business in Nairobi, and travelled with the kids last year. Between the back and forth emails we discovered that we were both going to be in Nairobi at the same time so it was perfect to catch up.

With Tracey at the Copia Office in Nairobi!

I’ve known Tracey for almost four years and I only knew she had a business in Kenya but since I don’t like to ask many questions it wasn’t until I was sitting with her in her hotel room in Nairobi that I asked: “So, what is exactly what you do?” And it was then that she told me about Copia, the Kenyan Amazon!
Copia Global focuses on helping low income people living in the rural parts of Kenya by providing a catalog with products that get delivered to their agent in their villages.

The following day I visited Copia and finally met Lucy, my Kenyan superstar!

Lucy, a Copia employee, was so kind to find me a school to volunteer at. The school she found was across the street from one of the Copia agents, Joyce, and on that day she drove me there so I could see where the school was located and how I could get there on my own.

On the ride to the school Lucy shared with me more about Copia and how it has grown in the last couple of years. She was one of the first employees and super proud of being part of the Copia family.

Lucy is so passionate about the work she does that she invited me to go out in the field with some of her colleagues so I could see first hand how Copia works.

Before my field trip with Lucy I paid a visit to Joyce at her hair salon and placed a Copia order of pens and paper for the school. Placing an order was really easy, Joyce had a tablet with the Copia catalog and we were able to find all the types of pen and chose which ones we wanted to order. Then teacher Laura paid with her M-Pesa (Kenyan Mobile money), and the items were delivered to Joyce within 2 business days. Easy, right?

Joyce's beauty salon

Ordering from Joyce's tablet!

The following week I met Lucy, Wangechi, and Muema and went on our little field trip.

Muema is the sales associate of the area we visited so he is in charge of all the agents that Lucy and Wangechi wanted to talk to. The whole point of our field trip was for Lucy and Wangechi, the business development manager and associate, to pitch a new idea to some of the top agents of the area and get their feedback and figure out if it was something that the people would be interested in participating.

Our first stop was at Rahab’s Ebenezer shop! We stopped quickly at this shop so Muema could deliver the new flyer with promotions to one of his new agents and explained how those items in the flyer were high margin and in a way a priority to sell so they would get a higher percentage back.

In the car I bombarded them with questions, the more I heard about the business the more I was interested in knowing more!

So my first question was: Who gets to be an agent?

If we think of Amazon, the website is the agent and we just automatically go to them but not Copia, not in Kenya! That wouldn’t work because not everybody has access to the internet (and the copia catalog is not available online for everybody to see) plus in rural Kenya there isn't such thing as an address for items to be delivered.

So… in order to be able to become an agent people must have a shop of some sort: corner market, hair salon, fruit stand, or any kind of shop (as long as it is hygienic.) Why is that? Well because those people already have customers so they can approach their already existing customers and sell them the Copia products and also because the shop will serve as the delivery point.

Then my next question was: How do you get agents?
And that was a loaded question that Lucy was more than happy to share all the details about.

Before Lucy had a chance to answer Muema and Wangechi jumped out and said “fame or to make money!” So apparently in rural Kenya Copia is a big thing and a cool thing! Being a Copia agent gives people some sort of “higher” status so people try really hard to become an agent. Other people really like Copia because it is a way to make an extra income.

It is not easy to become an agent (I think) and it is not easy to stay an agent if the person doesn’t put some effort into it. For example, in order to be in Muema’s team as an agent he asks every single agent to make at least 50,000Ksh ($500) per month and they must place at least one order every day.

Well… that sounds kind of hard! But it isn’t!

I was able to look at the catalog and they have so many things and one can literally buy anything!
Think of a toilet… they got it!

A stove? … They got it!

Water tank?… Got that too!

A phone?… yeap!

Batteries?… Sure thing!
Cement?… of course!

wheel barrow?… duh!

You can pretty much build a house with Copia! (unless you need bricks but you could use plywood or iron sheets!)

I was super impressed with all the items that are available! I saw mattresses, radios, fridges, shower heads, blow dryers, kettles, microwaves, water dispenser, gas tanks, textbooks, coloring pencils, machetes, ropes, nails and so many other things. The coolest part is that there are many brands and types to chose from.

In the food section I saw biscuits, milo, coffee, tea, juice, peanut butter, pasta, grains, ketchup, spices... and so much more!

They also carry a lot of farming needs such as fertilizer, animal feed, milking jelly and so on!

Muema (and every single sales associate) goes to their area on a daily basis and visits every single agent weekly. The sales associates are always around to provide support to the agents, to help them reach their goal, to coach them on how to approach new customers and how to keep the existing ones. So it looks like Copia really has a good system put in place to make their agents (and the company) succeed.

So how do they place orders?

I thought every agent was given a tablet but nope, the only ones who get a tablet from Copia are the high performers! High Performers are those whose sales are good, are consistent month to month with their sales, have consistent numbers of new and repeated customers, and sell high margin items. Once an agent reaches a high performance status they are given a tablet so they can show the products to their customers, show videos, and get accurate pricing for the items.

The other agents place orders by SMS sending the product code and quantity along with the name of the customer.

The copia app!

I felt like Copia had done a good job at targeting the items that are needed in the rural parts of Kenya. The whole point of Copia (as I see it) is that the people don’t have to spend a lot of time and more money going to the next big town to get what they need. In addition, if they have to travel an hour or two in matatus to go get the items then they have to carry everything back in the matatus which is a total pain! Plus, from what I saw in the places that we visited is that many times not even matatus were around, so people probably have to carry their stuff on boda bodas!

This is pretty much what every town looked like... dirt, boda bodas, and a couple of shops.

Also, many times the corner stores don’t have as much of a variety as Copia does so the clients have more to chose from AND many times the Copia agent is the owner of that corner store so Copia is not taking business from them, in the contrary Copia is providing them with more variety and a way to get some extra income.

For example Joyce (the lady with the hair saloon across the street from the school) can get everything she needs for her beauty shop through Copia; meaning that she doesn’t have to close her shop to go buy the materials. Plus, everything gets deliver for free within 48-72 hours, and big items (such as stoves, fridges etc) can be delivered at home for 200Ksh ($2) if they are within a 1km distance from the agent and take up to 4 days to deliver since at times they need a bigger truck!

So how do the agents make money?

They get a percentage of the sales depending on the tier that the items are on. Some items have higher margins than others and agents are encouraged to sell those that have a higher margin so they can get more money.

I saw Lucy's story below and I just loved it so I asked if I could share it:

Lucy named her first goat Copia! How cute?!?! And then Copia 1 and Copia 2 are her chickens! haha

But… does this make the items more expensive?

Nope! Actually teacher Laura (my classroom teacher) said to me: “I order through Joyce all the time, it’s actually cheap!” It turns out that buying through Copia doesn’t add to the products prices!

Some items are bought by Copia in bulk and divided into smaller quantities to fit the customers' needs.

Back to the field trip…

Our second stop was Peter who has joined forces with his wife and have a whole lot of customers!

Peter’s wife handles the shop while Peter works in construction and gets to network with a lot of people. At times Peter even markets to his bosses to buy the building materials through Copia! They get delivered to the site and Peter makes some money! A win win if you ask me!

Peter wearing his Copia t-shirt under his uniform!

From there we drove through very rural Kenya, we passed many cabbage fields and even saw motorcycles that were carrying way too many cabbages if you ask me! During our drive we saw a lot of cabbages that fell off the bike and although I wanted to pick up a few Lucy refused! haha I think she would be embarrassed if they saw a mzungu getting out of her car and stealing fallen cabbages! haha So I didn’t!

Land of cabbages!

Balancing that thing must not be easy

There he goes! He dropped a couple on his way!

Lucy took me to the land of overworked donkeys, cabbages, and sheep!

Our third stop was in a town called Rwamyambo where we visited Virginia at her Beauty shop.

Virharogla Hair & Beuty Salon

Virginia posing for a picture

View outside of Virginia's salon

Then we stopped at Andrew’s fruit shop!

Andrew putting the girls to work, work, work!

I have no idea what was going on but all I know is that Andrew had a whole lot of questions for what Wangechi and Lucy were pitching. He got so into the whole thing that he even called some of his best customers to come meet with the team and give their opinion.

Wangechi showing one of Andrew's customers some generators from the Copia online catalog.

It was good that Andrew was really into asking questions and since we spent more than an hour at his shop I even got to see a delivery!!!

Copia has its own fulfillment center around Nairobi with Copia trucks and every day delivery assistants make stops all over the rural areas where Copia has agents and deliver all the items.

From there we went to Ruth’s grocery store and seemed like she got the whole thing really quick so we moved to our last stop of the day!

Ruth's shop

Wangechi hard at work!

Dropping off some flyers and Copia posters to an agent!

We visited the last agent Stanley Mwangi who had his shop right across the street from a school and it was crazy! They really haven’t seen any mzungus in that part of town and I was really the ultimate attraction! I walked into his shop and once we peaked out almost the whole school was standing outside wanting to get a glance of the mzungu! It was hilarious!

Wangechi, Stanley, and half of a school!

We had a veeeery long day but also very productive! I learned a lot about Copia and got to see a different side of Kenya! In addition, I got to see how so many of the agents were wearing their Copia t-shirts and were proud of being part of the Copia Family!

Selfie time!

Long day... haha

After visiting other East Africa countries I went back to Kenya and called Lucy to take me back to the field to learn more about Copia! This time I visited the fulfillment centers and got to see the behind the scenes!
The first fulfillment center that I visited was divided into two parts. The bottom one was the food, personal care, baby care, and school supplies. The top one was electronics and household.

Fulfillment center!

To be honest it was shocking because I had never put any thought about the whole process of getting everything ready and delivered on time.

We arrived early one day and got to see the morning craziness of people processing orders. It all starts by printing out the invoice, and then making sure that the invoice goes to the person in charge of packaging for that route, and then making sure that all order are placed in individual bags and that all the items are there. From there they are placed under the delivery zones, and finally transported into the truck. In order to be successful the team has to work together and pay close attention to detail so the deliveries don't get messed up! It is so much work!!!

Packing the order with invoice in hand!

Name of agent and order number

Route

Off it goes to the truck!

What I loved about the warehouse was seeing how many women were working there!

Loving the Girl power!!!

The second fulfillment center stores the building and construction materials and farming inputs. I was impressed at how neat it looked!

While Lucy and Wangechi were in a meeting I explored and said hi to some of the employees and one delivery guy came to me and said "remember me?" I had seen him making a delivery at Andrew's fruit stand 3 weeks ago!

Rain or shine, things get delivered!

From the fulfillment center we went to the field! Yeay! This time we visited 5 Copia agents within Gatundu in Kiambu county and Greystone in Muranga county.

This time Lucy and Wangechi were pitching another program that they are testing called "Remote shopping" where customers can place an order with their agent for their relatives and friends who live in different locations. The items will eventually be delivered to an agent that is close to the receiving customer.

Our first stop was at Serah’s hotel (a hotel is the name for a restaurant in Kenya.) Wangechi had called prior to our arrival to make us some chapatti (since I LOVE chapatis!) and the girls said Sara makes the best ones! Once we arrived we sat inside her hotel, got some chapatis and she also gave us avery delicious porridge!

Enjoying the chapati and porridge!

Her hotel is a huge advertiser for Copia. As I sat at the table I saw the catalog and many offer handouts laying there. The walls had so many Copia handouts and calendars.

Serah and her copia sugar!

As we sat there eating our chapatti (and while they talked about the program) a copia customer showed up and placed an order. The order placing took literally 2 minutes. Serah stood by her customer with her tablet and found the items she wanted to buy, placed the order, and gave Serah the money for it! So easy!

I asked a lot of questions about Serah and what she gets from Copia since it was the first restaurant I got to visit.

It was super interesting to see that most of her needs could be bought through Copia. I said "what is from copia in here?" and she responded by saying "EVERYTHING!" and touched a HUGE sufuria (cooking pot) next to her and added "Even this is from Copia!"

I went around her small shop and saw that she bought cups, jugs, plates, buckets, plastic chairs, thermos, sufuria, cutlery, and pretty much everything I could see from Copia.

All copia!

Absolutely everything (except the wood... and the child! haha) in this picture is from Copia!

Then I asked what were the items that she couldn't buy and I added: "how about food?" and she said she buys flour, sugar, oil,uji mix (porridge), tomato sauce and many other things from Copia except from fresh produce!

I was impressed to see her 11 year old, Mercy Njahira, in the kitchen the whole time. It turns out that Mercy is on school holiday and she comes to help her mom with the restaurant. She was the one who mixed the dough for our chapattis and chopped all the ingredients and started cooking while we were there.
It was very interesting to see what an 11 year old does in rural Kenya; in the US most kids her age spend their summer vacation at camps, or on their phones, tablets, or in front of the tv!

The best part about agents having their own business is that by placing orders they also get money back from buying their own supplies! How cool is that?

The day was spent going through many other shops, mostly corner stores and talking to the agents about the remote shopping. Every time I went on the field I finished EXHAUSTED! And I didn't have to do any of the driving or the talking... This time it was me on the back of Lucy's car falling asleep!

Last time I learned my lesson about not finding food out in the field and being hungry! This time I came prepared and brought snacks for our field trip!

I introduce Lucy and Wangechi to Hummus and crudite, and apples and peanut butter!!!

I think Wangechi just found her new favorite snack... apples and PB!

The next day she even brought some to work!

Learning about Copia and going to the field and seeing it in action was so much fun! The best part is to know that the company is really helping the community and making their life easier one delivery at the time!!!

Plus, I got to make new friends <3

Happy hour after a long day at work at The Alchemist!

After work shenanigans!

On my last day in Kenya I took Lucy out for lunch and she tried Indian food for the first... and she liked it!

It was too hot! haha

About Post Author

Andrea

Hi! It's me... Andrea! In 2016 I decided to drop everything and take a year to enrich my life and travel around the world. It turns out the world is just too big for 12 months! Still on the road and sharing my experience as a solo female traveler around the globe!

5 comments:

UnknownNovember 10, 2017 at 8:24 AM
Captures the heart and soul of Copia...beautifully written Andrea!!
AnonymousNovember 11, 2017 at 12:28 AM
I absolutely love the read.
It captures the core part of Copia, that is, providing quality goods to low income earners with no hustle whatsoever.
Lovely piece Andrea!
UnknownJanuary 28, 2019 at 11:53 PM
Aww what a beautifully written story and what a business! Congratulations to the entire Copia team!