Customer Research Project: Payment Preferences of Gitarama Shop Owners

This customer research project analyzes the payment preferences and customer behavior of shopkeepers in Gitarama, Rwanda. The research involved interviewing five shop owners to understand their business practices, including the types of products they stock, their daily sales volumes, and the times of day they experience the most customer traffic. The study explores the payment methods accepted, including cash, checks, and digital payments, and the reasons behind the shopkeepers' preferences. The findings highlight the dominance of cash transactions, the limited adoption of digital payments, and the shopkeepers' attitudes toward paper-based and digital payment systems. The project also examines the impact of customer demographics and government policies on payment methods. The research reveals that most shops experience peak sales during school hours, lunch, and dinner times, and that female customers generally make more purchases than males. The shopkeepers' reluctance towards digital payments is attributed to concerns about transaction fees, fraud, and the perceived lack of infrastructure. The project provides valuable insights into the payment landscape in Gitarama and the factors influencing payment method choices by both shop owners and customers.

CUSTOMER RESEARCH PROJECT
Name
Affiliation

Introduction
• I the course of carrying out a research on customer research project I
decided to interview 5 people who owns shop at Gitarama. One should
know that Gitarama is a big city located Southern Province with total
population of 87,613.
• Huge population provides good market for different products. The
shop owner’s stocks different products in their shop depending on
customers. The five shopkeepers are number A, B, C, D and E.

Research objectives and methodology
Objectives
• The primary objective of this research will be to identify different customers
who visit different shop on a different time of the day.
• Another objective will be to see different kind of stock stocked by different
shops in the market.
Methodology
• In this kind of research, the best kind of methodology to use will be Interview,
observation and questionnaires. I will stand in a strategic place where I will
observe customer and shop owners behavior in the market. Also, after making
their purchases I will ask questions to selected customers as well as
shopkeepers.

Interviewee profile
• In the course of carrying out the research, I decided to carry out the interview
on three shops. These three shops are located in Gitarama whose main
economic activity is self employment for shop selling. These three interviews
will give me the insight of what is store in the market. The interview will ask
among other questions (Cook, 2012, pp. 78-79).
• What type of products have you stored in shop?
• What is the rough estimate of their daily volume of business?
• What time of the day do you sell most?
• What is the total number of transactions and size distribution of transactions?
• How does the government promote your work?

Payment method
• One thing all shopkeepers agreed was that they accept currency used in
Rwanda which is Rwandan franc, the currency is equivalent to 0.0011
dollar. The payment method is mostly cash in hand, letter of collection,
factoring and documentary collections among others (Robert Listfield,
2016, pp. 136-139).
• The above method is preferred because is accepted all over in Rwanda.
Most of the suppliers are those who supply commodities to the shop.
Those commodities are from wholesalers, retailers or the company
itself. Customer preference is to get quality products from the market
and timely. They don’t a situation where customers would come into the
shop and lack the required commodity.

Paper-based payments
• From the interview, I also realized the shops allowed one to use cash
and checks (paper-based payments). Shops owners argued the use of
cash and checks reduced to chances of one being conned by
customers.
• Other methods of payment increased the risk of losing money. What
surprised me most are most shopkeepers believed on witchcraft.
Another risk associated with cash was chances of being given fake
money.

Digital payments
• Most of shopkeeper owner in Gitarama don’t mostly believe in digital
payments (cards and mobile). Although, its mostly used in large scale
in the country. Different shopkeepers had different reasons for not
accepting digital marketing (Schreft, 2016, pp. 217-222).
• However, I believe the small scale business people might be interested
with digital payment in order to reduce bulky money. As well reducing
the risk of losing solid money to theft.

Summary of key findings
• From the research, most shops sell in the morning, lunch time and the
evening. The reason why they sell in the morning is because this is the
time most kid goes to school.
• Their parent buys some products in the morning in order to prepare
their children for school. Lunch time most shops sell in order to make
lunch. Also, evening most shopkeepers sell to prepare supper.
• In the long run, most female customers make purchases more than
males in the market. The different in other countries is that sales differ
a lot.

References
Cook, S. (2012). Customer care excellence : how to create an effective customer focus. London:
Philadelphia Kogan Page, pp. 78-79).
Robert Listfield, . M.-N. (2016). Modernizing payment systems in emerging economies. Washington, D.C:
World Bank, Financial Sector Development Dept, 2016, pp. 136-139).
Schreft, S. L. (2016). How and why do consumers choose their payment methods? Kansas City [Mo.] :
Research Division, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Schreft, 2016, pp. 217-222).