Zimbabwe's Financial Gazette (Fingaz) has joined hands with the Fast Foods Division of Innscor Africa Limited to make it easy for its readers to purchase copies of their favourite weekly without having to worry about the biting cash shortages.
Starting last week, readers of The Financial Gazette are now able to buy copies of the business weekly at any of the Chicken Inn, Steers, Nando's, Creamy Inn, On The Run and Bakers Inn outlets where they can either use their swipe cards (debit cards) or cash, for those who can access it, to buy the newspaper.
For those with standing arrangements with Innscor to use cheques or the real time gross settlement system (RTGS), they can also add Fingaz to the list of products they can purchase at the designated Innscor outlets.
Fingaz Acting Editor-in-Chief, Hama Saburi, yesterday expressed gratitude to Innscor for agreeing to have the leading business weekly sell its newspapers through its distribution network, which already enjoys the benefit of point of sale terminals (POS).
Saburi said Fingaz would continue to explore ways to make its product easily accessible to readers in all corners of the country in view of the crippling cash shortages, a result of the deepening economic crisis.
"With the newspaper going for $7 000 and our readers only able to access $500 per day through the banks, we have had to think outside the box to make life easier for our readers," said Saburi.
"In this case, we didn't see the need to reinvent the wheel but to take advantage of Innscor's extensive distribution network to distribute our paper with the major attraction being that the Zimbabwe Stock Excha-nge-listed group has invested heavily in point of sale terminals and other facilities that remove the cash burden," he added.
Saburi said Fingaz had also installed two POS terminals at its head office along Harare Street where readers and advertisers can pay for their newspapers and advertisements without having to queue for cash at the banks.
"Our sales and marketing team will be going all out to raise awareness on these products, which are aimed at bringing convenience to our customers," he said.
The swiping system is fast becoming the most popular method of buying in Zimbabwe because of the cash shortages.
Click here to read the full report, posted on the Financial Gazette's website.
