Saturday, December 4, 2010

Google Trader launched in Ghana



Just a few weeks after Google Ghana launched its innovative Q&A service, Google Baraza, the online search giant has launched its Mobile and Web trading service, Google Trader in Ghana. As from Thursday 2nd December, Ghanaians can buy and sell their goods and service using Google Trader.

Google Trader provides two ways by which you can buy or sell items. You can use your computer or phone to visit the Google Trader website where you can put your item up for sale. You can search for items on your computer, on your phone and via SMS. You can search for items in two ways. If you know the broad category of item that you are interested in, for example, electronics, then simply click on the Electronics link to see all items posted under that category. You can also enter in words in the search box at the top of the screen and press Search Trader to search for items that contain those words.

Alternatively you can do same via SMS just by testing START to 6007.You can also search for items by sending a text message to the number 6007. This message must start with the word BUY, followed by the words that you would like to search for. For example, to search for electronics, you would send BUY electronics to 6007. To search for used Toyotas for sale, you might send BUY toyota to 6007.

Google Trader was first launched in Uganda, making Ghana the second country in Africa to benefit from this service. Visit the Service's help page for more information on Google Trader.


6 comments:

CY lover said...

Interesting news. A personal observation I've made is you media (social or wherever) men are always referring to any service as 'innovative' even when it's not.

On topic though, Africa's tech problem is not the lack of 'innovative' services, no; it's how many people care enough or have the technology to access to these services(a fact big tech companies who come to Africa like Google have yet to comprehend.)
I believe the African tech scene can only be enhanced by local tech companies or individuals, who understand the mentality of the average Joe.

Edward Tagoe said...

Very interesting points made CY lover. It is hard to find a completely innovative service/product nowadays since most products are off-shoots of an already existing services.

Google Trader is offered on mobile and SMS platforms as well. I thought this was enough understanding of how technology users in developing nations behaved. What's your thought on that?

Anonymous said...

When you peel off all the hullabaloo, google trader is just a classifieds website. It is not much different from what is offered by ghanaweb.com, myjoyonline or gkrom.com. In fact it is less localised than the offering from www.gkrom.com.
google is just trying to do something to stay relevant in the country so that it can swoop in if the economy really picks up. It's up to Ghanaian entrepreneurs to really create innovate solutions that will help build the economy. Big foreign giants like Google are really just lurking around to reap profits when the opportunity strikes. They are not here to fundamentally grow the economy.

Edward Tagoe said...

@Anonymous - Good point. It might also help entrepreneurs, when we know pretty well that there are software giants like Google to buy our companies when we make some headway. I was beginning to wonder when the million dollar acquisition craze happening elsewhere will hit the shores of Ghana.

In such cases, we can fall on Google or what do you think?

charson said...

This site is not different from all the other classified sites just like what somebody commented. If they want to make the product really innovative, they can integrate instant payment gateway on the site where people can buy items instantly. Ghanaians have been banned from using Paypal and if they can develop an alternative and integrate that into their website, I guess the web-application wouldn't be far from being innovative. Most of the banks in Ghana do not support online payment and stuff. The way forward is to partner with those banks and develop their online payment services and use that on their website. Other than that this is just like any ordinary classified website. It's the brand that reflects that's why people are so crazy about the not-so-different classified site.

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