NTINDA – In yet another effort to woo customers, homegrown e-commerce major, Xente application has rolled out a ‘pay later’ option in which one can buy products from the platform on credit.
The feature launched early this week enables users to purchase products from Xente catalog ranging from airtime, data services, events, paying utilities and others payments including travel and movie tickets.
In an interview with Ms. Lyn Tukei, the Public Relations and Chief marketing Officer at Xente on Friday, she said in the new arrangement, one will be able to use the service depending on how much they transact on daily.
With a pre-defined credit limit, a customer can make purchases on Xente throughout the month without having to pay for the products immediately.
Ms. Tukei explained the outstanding bill can be paid within a month for one to acquire other products.
“If you are a little short of money, or need a little extra, you can buy a product on Xente and Pay Later,” she said.
She said any Xente users can apply for the Pay Later service under the ‘Upgrade to Premium’ option in the side menu on Xente App.
Users are also required to upload and submit their personal details including National Identity picture and the number or the Passport for approval from Xente team.
Ms. Tukei said approval is done in less than 24 hours.
“Once your request is approved, you will receive an email that your account has been upgraded to Premium,” said adding that customers can now Purchase any product or service on Xente and pay later.
The offer is applicable only to Xente products and available on products select sellers for now.
Xente now becomes the first homegrown e-commerce company to introduce such options to Ugandans in the drive to make people embrace the digital economy.
However, selling products to users on credit exposes Xente to the risk of willful defaults.
For example, a user whose account has been suspended on account of defaults could always create a new account. It remains to be seen how Xente plans to deal with such challenges.
But Ms. Tukei said the company has a recovery mechanism in the system and that “the system mitigates our risk exposure with the help of our loans and risk management officer.”
Asked how much has been transacted since the feature was rolled out, she declined to divulge details saying “I cannot confirm now.”
Uganda’s giant e-commerce company is leaving no stone unturned in its effort to outrun its emerging other e-commerce competitors which some are snapping at its heels.
Ms. Tukei also revealed that the company will in early January next year unveil other options including the much-anticipated “loan feature’ under ‘my loans’ where customers will be able to acquire loans in form of cash and other digital payments.
She said the service will provide their customers the ability to borrow using their phones and take out short-term loans at a reasonable fee without presenting any collateral security.
However, she said that the service will be subjected to terms and conditions to adhere to before requesting for a loan and that the customer will not have to visit any Xente offices to fill out forms.
