Thursday, October 23, 2008

Not getting your goat

It looks like a blue Christmas without one in Kenya:
No Kenyan Christmas would be complete without a roasted goat to feed the family, but the global credit crunch means some look set to miss out this festive season.

Orders for "Mbuzi ya Jamii" (goat for the family) are down sharply at Mama Mikes, an online store that allows Kenyans living abroad to pay for a range of products and services which are then delivered to their families back home.

These include goats, medical check-ups, supermarket shopping vouchers, school fees and others gifts.

"We have customers who are cancelling [orders] and most of them are saying that times are hard so they can't do it anymore," says Muthoni Machanga, the firm's finance and accounting manager.

The firm's customers typically spent between $60 and $100 per order three months ago, but this has now dropped to $45-60. Revenue has dropped by 30%.

Even the firm's loyal customers, who maintain monthly accounts for shopping vouchers and school fees payments have started cancelling or reducing their orders.

Ms Machanga says they are getting at least two cancellations a month and this is worrying for them, and also for the families in Kenya who rely on the remittances.

"It's putting families back home in Kenya under pressure at a time when they're already under pressure from very, very high inflation. One can sense these pressures occurring in the economy," says financial analyst Aly Khan Satchu.

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