What is the reason for creating Zimsite, and what do we hope to accomplish with it, this article is going to address those two questions to help you get a better understanding of what we are aiming for.

Firstly, what is the reason for creating Zimsite.

There are many free online website builders, this is not a new concept and as much as I would like it to be a revolutionary idea, it really is just bringing an already existing concept into the local market.

Google, WordPress, Wix, Weebly, and many other organizations do, and have for many many years, provided free platforms where people can create their own websites at no cost. There are certain limits on these platforms that require you to start paying as you grow your website, this means they can provide essential services that do not use much in the way of resources at no cost, as your websites requirements increase and the demand on their systems increase, you can choose to start paying for upgrades.

This is a brilliant system as it allows people to get started online at no cost, and as their requirements increase they can simply start paying for upgrades and additional features.

It also means you can run a personal website for free, forever, as long as your requirements remain within the limitations they have.

If you want to sell products online, host your own videos, upload hundreds of photos, or create a website that is going to use a large amount of space, or gets thousands of visitors every day, you will find that all of a sudden the limitations imposed affect your website. At this point you can choose to pay for upgrades, or your website may become unusable.

There are costs associated with hosting a website, these are, the hardware used, this is a server, internet connection equipment and backup power supply (there could be more depending on the setup), and there are services you have to pay for, this is the internet connection to the server to have your site online. So your free website is still costing someone, just not you. These costs can be offset against paying customers, so a portion of what I charge for services goes towards supporting the free services I provide.

Now when you have a free Wix site for example, and you decide to upgrade to their first level, it will cost you about US$4.50 per month, aside from the challenges of making the international payment, this money is then leaving Zimbabwe and going to Israel as that is where Wix is registered. So Zimbabwe is paying Israel for a service that could be provided within Zimbabwe and go towards the Zimbabwe economy.

So the answer to “What is the reason”, it is to ultimately provide services locally where possible, thus keeping the business in the Zimbabwe economy.

Secondly, what do we hope to accomplish.

We hope that through Zimsite we can enable every business to get online and grow, this should help more businesses get started, and succeed in the market, as they grow we expect the majority of them to outgrow the limitations of their free packages offered by Zimsite and for them to then move on to packages they pay for.

As much as I would like to get every website design project in the country, that is not possible and we will be both working with other designers, referring business to other providers, and customers will seek out their own providers to fulfill their needs, but we see it is a way to keep a lot more of the business in the country and with local service providers rather than pushing everyone to get a free Wix site and then have them upgrade their accounts on the Wix platform.

The ultimate goal of Zimsite is to help businesses grow and keep the services they use local thus contributing towards a better economy in Zimbabwe.

A better economy helps everyone, not just us, not just our customers, and not a specific industry, it helps the entire country and everyone in it.

While Zimsite might not provide a complete solution to the challenges, Zimbabwe has a lot to benefit from online, global business. These opportunities have not taken off in the country and they could.

In South Africa you have Takealot.com, the South African version of Amazon, In America you have Amazon, in China you have Alibaba, and there are many many more examples, where are the Zimbabwean equivalents? Are we as a country sitting on the side-lines of the internet age just watching and every now and again using another countries services because we are not joining in with our own local services, why have we not embraced the opportunities the internet provides?

We have identified the cost and assistance of getting online as an area that we can help with, and from that comes Zimsite.