5 Reasons Why Cyber Cafés Business is Still a Booming Business in Kenya.

Despite the negative buzz regarding planting cyber cafés in the human-packed streets in Kenya, there are more than enough reasons why this negativity is to be considered the best motivation to put up yet

another café right when everyone is against it.

While the naysayers preach the gospel of Internet-enabled phones disabling the profitability of the cyber cafés, it is important to note that this is actually a positive to the growth of this kind of business.

1. “Battery reading 5%”

Working on the move has left us in a state where we make phone calls to discuss business every few minutes. Even the most precious
coffee dates have not been spared from mobile phone call interruption. When we are not answering phones at the supermarket while shopping, we are send texts to our loved ones or downloading this video shared by a colleague regarding an on-going seminar. While this has made daily life lighter by enabling us to be in more than one place at a time, it has brought more harm to the Smart phones’ batteries that get drained in no time. Have you ever noticed that when everything seems to be flowing on alright, that is when the sad double beep alerts you that your phone’s battery is drained? Just when you need to look up that website, fill in that online form or reply that email that simply cannot wait; that is when the battery says, “Goodbye”  What would we possibly do without the cyber cafés?

2. Cyber Cafés; a major rescue at the time of Printing-need.

With the increasing population of people being able to read their emails on the go, this comes along with a need to print a document on demand. Imagine hearing that beep from your phone as you walk down the street to meet a friend just after office hours and upon checking it you find an email from one of your many important clients. They have sent you a document that you need to review privately in a short while and take action. The presence of a cyber café across the street is a savior. You rush to the cyber café, but upon getting there you realize that you are not comfortable with the idea of having your phone connected to some computers that you are not so sure about the security status. Seeing no other option, you are compelled to do one noble thing; quickly log into your email, download the document, print it and make business happen. Thanks to the fact that you held onto your Yahoo mail, Outlook mail or Gmail.

3. Internet bundles are just not enough

So you finally got the Smart phone you badly needed, and the Internet access on the phone is as fair as it can get. Well, with so many videos, audios and documents to download at every possible instance, you are left to realize that the Internet bundles you buy from the Mobile service provider are just not enough for the fun times as well as the serious business times. When serious matters need to be handled, you are left with one option: visit the cyber café, sit, carry on the research, typing, printing, binding and all that you need to do to get the document done in time or else you miss the business.

4. Just not everyone’s phone is that smart

This is an awakening to many people. Though many people have mobile phones, there is still a good number of those that have not upgraded theirs to the “smartness” level. Besides, with the strong believe amongst Kenyans that non-smart phones  are untraceable because they do not have any GPS facility that can be turned on; a case yet to be proven as true, there are quite a number of people who still want to hold on to their old “not-so-smart-phones” for privacy purposes. Again, it gives people the liberty to courageously make or receive calls right in the middle of the phone-snatchers infested streets. Even such phone owners need Internet services so cyber cafés are still the thing!

5. More students, less laptops

After the long beautiful story of providing laptops to class one pupils in primary schools, it has ended up with a new twist of providing Tablets instead. Fair enough for the young ones when it finally happens. On the flip side of the story, Kenya has managed to continually plant a good number of universities in every well populated city and town. This means more students have the chance to finally pursue a degree. With the multitude of assignments that require long hours of research split between the school library and any site that can provide Internet facilities, this creates a huge slice of opportunity for the growth of cyber café businesses near the campuses. Interesting to note, most of those cyber cafés belong to the students.

 

In conclusion, the location of your cyber café will enable you to go on and make a kill in profits as long as you are sensitive to the seasons and excitingly innovative. An intelligent entrepreneur will be careful to study the traffic in a certain location before settling for the cyber café business. Again, the cyber café should not be simply an Internet accessing zone, it is important to work on attracting and retaining as many clients as you can. In that case, the cyber café should at least be equipped with;

•  A3/A4 photocopying machine- whether secondhand or new just make sure it produces clean copies.
• Color printer- for all those who believe in colors.
• Guillotine- to ensure that the client can cut the printed document to the desired size.
•  Laminator- Just because we need to keep the printed certificated safe and dry from the coffee spillage.
• Binding Machine- to help make that neat booklet from the pack of printed documents.
• Refrigerator- Entice the client to keep around long enough without the need to go and look for a cool drink from the supermarket. The longer the client stays, the more the income!
• Waiting bay- this is where your clients can sit and wait for you to complete a transaction. It should have preferably a 3-4 seater comfortable bench, a table with magazines and muted television set to kill the possible anxiety.

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