"Losing a sale because the customer does not trust me was always painful. But that problem is now long forgotten."

“I always felt bad losing sales because customers could not trust me. But I am now happy that Escrow Kenya is helping me recover such sales.”

Mr. George Gitonga, online laptops dealer

When I started selling laptops on Facebook, I knew that I was going to encounter lots of challenges dealing with customers with trust issues. Yes, I had a great advertisement plan and I would get lots of enquiries from potential buyers, but most chickened out of the deal when I told them that they must pay before I dispatch a laptop for delivery.

Quite understandably, it makes sense for a customer to be worried about being conned when buying online—hundreds of Kenyans have taken to the streets of social media narrating how they were conned when buying off Facebook, Instagram and classified sites like OLX. At the same time, I cannot risk sending out a laptop for delivery without having received full payment. And even if I occasionally get customers who trust me to deliver even though we have never met, majority are those who choose to forego the sale.

So when I saw a story about Escrow Kenya on the Standard newspaper some time in November 2018, I got curious about how the website could help me scale my business. Although the site seems to focus on protecting buyers from being conned, I figured that any seller would equally stand to benefit from the service if they recommended it to skeptical buyers.

www.escrowkenya.com offers buyer-seller protection, securing online purchases and sales and restoring confidence where trust may fall short.

BUT I was not initially sold out on the idea!

As much as the website solves the trust issues between a buyer and a seller, both the buyer and the seller must trust the website in the first place for them to agree to use the escrow service. It took visiting their offices along Thika Road and having a chitchat with their CEO for me to consider recommending the service to skeptical buyers. Si unajua Wakenya ni wale wale tu! (Kenyans are those those!)

Soon enough I encountered a skeptical buyer, Robinson, in Mombasa. He needed a good laptop on a budget but could not find one locally—either the good ones around him were way off his budget or the ones in his budget were in a very bad shape. So, when he chanced upon my post in a Facebook group selling decent refurbished laptops at an unbelievable price, he feared that I was not genuine.

After lots of back and forth on my business page and showing him other customers' reviews, he was not yet certain about whether to trust me or not. I could tell that this was going to be yet another slippery sale that I was about to lose.

So I committed to taking a leap of faith and trust Escrow Kenya and hoped that he would take it with me. And fortunately for me, he did!

An order completed through www.escrowkenya.com

Robinson gave me his email address and phone number and I created the escrow transaction. Minutes later I got an SMS notifying me that the invitation had been accepted and another sweet one:

“Escrow transaction with **Robinson XXXX funded. Proceed with delivery. Check your email for more info."

I was so excited.

So I sent out the delivery and waited till the following morning when I was sure that the parcel had arrived and marked the order as delivered. It’s as if my boy Robinson camped at the G4S offices waiting for it to arrive—I got another SMS less than an hour later:

“**Robinson XXXX approved your delivery. Escrowed funds available for withdrawal. Check your email for more info.”

I did the happy dance. I was super-excited! My days of counting lost sales were officially over.

I totally totally loved the experience. From the real-time SMS notifications to the detailed emails telling you what happens next at each step, it could never get better.

Order completed via www.escrowkenya.com

I have since used the service to sell one more laptop to another lady, Sylviar, from Western Kenya and I have another order in progress with another guy called George.

Order in progress at www.escrowkenya.com

“I am glad I found Escrow Kenya. Ours is bound to be a “till death do we part” love story!”

** Customers' surnames have been omitted to protect their privacy.