So you have all your top products uploaded on your Web Shop, you’ve shared links to all your social media networks and boom! You get your first order! Don’t panic, here’s what you need to know to make sure it goes as smoothly as possible:

• Packaging: You know your product is awesome, so ensure that you put it in an awesome package! We recommend clean, new, gift bags with your branding printed on it. Recognition of your brand when sending out products is important. But not to worry, if you don’t have branded packaging, then any brand new gift bags like in the picture below will do.
• Timely Delivery: CloudMaduka promises customers within Nairobi fast & safe delivery, sometimes as quick as 2 hours! So if you don’t want to disappoint your customers, then ensure that you have your product packaged and ready for dispatch the moment you get your order. Our customer service agents will notify you with the name of the delivery rider that will come and collect the product from your shop.
• User Reviews: Every customer that buys from you will be asked to rate your services and write a review on your Web Shop. This review will be public for other potential customers to see before they make an order with you. It is important that you keep this in mind when dispatching your products.
• Payment: CloudMaduka pays merchants immediately the customer approves the product they have received. The product will be delivered to the customer, they will review that it’s what they wanted, and give authorization for the payment to be made to the merchant. If the product is not accepted then it will immediately be delivered back to you the merchant, at no cost to you. So ensure that you dispatch exactly what the customer ordered!

CloudMaduka is an ecommerce platform built for African businesses. Business owners that want to use the platform download the CloudMaduka Merchant App from Google Play and set up an account. All they need to provide are their personal details, unique name of their shop and other shop details such as opening hours, location and mobile money (MPesa) phone number.

The CloudMaduka app is a fully stocked inventory management system that business owners use to upload products, specify price points, stock levels, variants and much more. Once products are uploaded they immediately appear on the customer marketplace which is a website under the URL www.cloudmaduka.com. Each business owner gets a unique link for both their web shop and each of their products that they can share to their networks directly from the app.

In the event that a customer makes a purchase for product on the platform, CloudMaduka’s platform will ensure end-to-end fulfillment of the order. The order will be dispatched through one of our delivery partners which enables us to accomplish same day deliveries across urban areas. After a product is successfully delivered, the seller is paid immediately through mobile money (MPesa).

There are no entry costs or registration fees with CloudMaduka, there are also no monthly fees. CloudMaduka works on commission, and takes a service fee of 8% on every transaction. As business owners are uploading their products, there are 2 fields for price – ‘Your Prices’ & ‘Sales Price’. ‘Your Price’ is the amount of money you will get from the sale of an item. While ‘Sales Price’ is the amount the customer will pay for the item, which includes CloudMaduka’s 8% service fee. That way, sellers can very easily put in how much they want to make from the sale of an item minus CloudMaduka’s 8%.

All merchants, both individual and registered companies, are responsible to declare their earnings to the Kenya Revenue Authority as part of the monthly and annual fiscal responsibilities. CloudMaduka is a Software as a Service which means that as an online platform, we enable merchants to sell products via our web-shops from which CloudMaduka earns revenue via the mark-up of the merchant’s prices. 

As a result, CloudMaduka does not charge VAT to customers and as a result, this is not reflected in the customer order summaries. If a merchant is registered as a VAT vendor, it is important that their prices uploaded on the platform are inclusive of this so that they can file their taxes accordingly and customers can request for ETR slips post-purchase.

In case a merchant is not eligible to pay VAT then they need to ensure they declare their earnings on the platform transparently and accurately.CloudMaduka is compliant with all statutory practices and will readily declare merchant earnings with the Kenya Revenue Authority as and when needed. It is therefore imperative that all sellers comply on the same.

CloudMaduka runs seasonal campaigns/promotion to boost merchant sales and provide customers an opportunity to shop for their favorite products at reduced prices. Campaigns are always themed to a specific activity or period on the calendar e.g the Back to School campaign, Valentines, Easter, Ramadan, Black Friday, Christmas etc. 

Campaigns provide a very good opportunity to merchants to showcase their products and attract a base of customers all looking for an item to purchase. 

Cloud Maduka’s two types of campaigns; free and paid. 

Once a customer places an order, the merchant will receive a notification on email, the CloudMaduka merchant app and on sms. You will then be required to confirm availability of the product and the pick up location to allow our team to plan delivery to the customer. 

Confirmation of product availability triggers the delivery process from our end in coordination with our delivery partners and moves the product from new to confirmed which is then communicated to the customer. 

If the product is not available, we will cancel it or outsource from another merchant on our platform. 

As you upload your product, the customer will want to know the cost of the product to ascertain if it fits within their budget. CloudMaduka charges a fee of 8% on each product sold. 

Under the Pricing and Stock section, you will be required to enter the amount the ‘Customer Will Pay’ which will be calculated by our system and bring out the amount you will earn. 

CloudMaduka also has  premium plans that allow you as a merchant to be charged a lesser commission and also provides insights and analytics on the customer behavior. 

The premium plans have  a free trial period of 30 days.