I have a love hate relationship with malls. Actually with the whole idea of shopping as a whole. In between the love and hate, malls give me anxiety right from the get go because they’re just too much. Malls have a perfect way of tossing all prior plans to the side and taking over the day.
Look at the Junction mall for example which I frequent because it is on my way home. I’ll usually resolve to go to a particular shop after work, mostly CarreFour but what do I come across right at the entrance? Goodlife Pharmacy with all those beauty and skincare products calling me by my three names. Quite a number of normal, every day, fair priced items in there and I end up picking a deep conditioner for my hair even though I already have enough treatments at home.
Right across is the MAC store and even though I do not plan on buying anything there, the girl in me cannot walk past all those attractively arranged foundations and lip glosses. I step in for some window shopping. After going through several testers and with some persuasion from the beautiful attendants, I do some quick math, slash my supermarket money in my head and walk out with of all other things, a primer. No, I do not use primers on a regular.
It will be an hour or two before I limp into Carrefour with not only a ruined budget but with my shopping time cut in half. That is after giving all I have to fight the urge to grab an ice cream down to the left. Or a sandwich at Subway further down. At this point I’m short of money, short of time and totally flustered. The worst possible set of conditions anyone can do their shopping in.
The core business that took me to the mall gets the least time and the least mental space. I need to get it over with, hit the road, beat traffic, and go home to prepare for tomorrow’s workday. Meetings, events and more traffic. Of I’ve course forgotten to buy a thing or two at the supermarket which I can’t do without so that’s another short trip tomorrow. This cannot be life.
The mall is just one example of how a shopping trip to anywhere can get ruined. There are many other instances. Like sometimes I could resolve to just go to Ngara for veggies. But the colour blocked sweater across the road? Let me check that out real quick. Do not even get me started on entering CBD to go City Market which happens to be my favourite meat and fish go to. How do I ignore the glitzy boutiques with glitzy dresses from Turkey?
Anyway, my shopping errands are more of distractions and indiscipline. Something’s gotta give.
The reason I’ve been flailing around town all these years in the name of shopping is that the idea of a personal shopper has always been a little alien to me. Maybe because the thought had never taken firm ground in my head and nobody had presented a well-crafted method to it. Plus there is a time for everything and a time has come for me to discover and to fall in love with Sendy Go. A perfect example of technology driving lifestyle and convenience to make life easier for busy professionals and home makers like me.
A few weeks ago I sat in my mother’s house in Nyeri, downloaded the Sendy Go App, ordered some things from GoodLife pharmacy, and had them delivered to Sameer Business Park Mombasa Road where I picked them quickly the moment I got to Nairobi. No distractions, no drama, no wahala.
Why am I so excited about Sendy Go? Because as much as it is online shopping, it has a feature that falls right into my preferences as a picky shopper. Sendy Go actually places a dedicated personal shopper inside the store where a customer is making orders. And we’re not talking about utopian stores here. We’re talking Carrefour, Naivas, Quickmart, City Market, Ngara market, Goodlife pharmacy and so many other stores that fall within the radar of the every-day shopper.
The moment you place an order, a living breathing human being receives it and gets in touch with you. Together you select your products, and then they’re delivered to your doorstep or to a location of your choice. Which means you can also shop for someone. It also means that mothers could take a few minutes out of their office work, have their kids’ shopping done and delivered home way before end of office day. For those of us who don’t want supermarket tantrums, here we go.
With the inclusion of Text-Book Center for instance, home schooler mums could order books and spend quality time with their children as they wait for the Sendy Go rider to deliver.
The app has a provision for shoppers to add notes on any particular brands of their choice, as well as an in-app help button that links them straight to a customer care agent for further assistance if need be.
I really think Sendy Go is a game changer and I’m here for it all! The convenience, the personal shopper that shops juts the way you do, the delivery and riders, all of it!
If you would like to check it out, here is how:
- Download ‘SendyGo’ from the Playstore
- Create your account
- Add your delivery location.
- Select the store you want to shop from and pick your products. Add any custom notes you want to share with your personal shopper.
- Checkout and pay with Mpesa or card.
- Relax and keep track of your order’s progress.
You will be grateful to have SendyGo in your life and you will thank me later ?.
