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According to the World Sustainable Organisation, a spaza shop is as a small family owned business selling goods from home in the black suburbs of South Africa. Spaza is a Zulu word for ‘hidden’ or ‘camouflaged’. The old spaza shops traded in secret up to January 1989 as the former government had banned them. Since that time they were allowed to do business as long as they obtained a trading licence.
Away from history, SA’s Polymorph systems has launched a new kid of Spaza shops.
Speaking to TechMoran, Richard Barry said, “Spaza Shop is a new is a new marketplace for South African Android apps. The shop was launched on November 8 this year in South Africa and is now available on the Google Play store.”
He added,”It’s a product of Polymorph systems and was developed by Dawid van Graan and I (Richard Barry) at Polymorph Systems.
Polymorph Systems is a South-African based mobile development company that creates high-quality smartphone applications for the global market. The firm says it has been involved in big enterprise system development since 2001, and in offering native and web-based mobile solutions to clients since its launch in 2009.
We talked to Richard Barry and this is what he told us.
What inspired you to find Spaza Shop?
As app developers we’ve found that local apps struggle to get exposure in the Google Play store. So we decided to build an app that helps local developers give exposure to their apps.
How does it work?
It’s a listing of local, South African apps. The user can view lists of apps in different categories, and view details for a selected app. These details include the description, the rating and even screenshots.
Take us through your features
– List of apps by category, by date added (New) and a Top 10 list.
– App details and screenshots can be viewed
– Install the app right from the Play store.
Why Android? Any plans to have other OS in the shop iOS?
Android allows us the freedom to do develop an app like this. It isn’t possible (or allowed) on iOS with Apple’s App Store.
What apps are already in the the shop?
It’s a constantly growing list of apps that grows as local developers add their apps. They can do so on this website: http://www.appositionconsulting.com/spazashop/
What is your business model?
None. we’re doing this to help out Android developers in South Africa. We desperately want to help grow the Android ecosystem in South Africa. We will all win if Android gains in popularity on South Africa, and giving local apps exposure will attract more users to the platform as they realize what value their is in having an Android phone.
Are you only in SA?
Yes, but we can easily replicate the app for other markets.
Competition?
None, there is nothing else that provides this kind of exposure to local app developers.
Any funding yet?
Self funded.
Challenges?
Getting users to use the app. Only if users download and use the app to discover local apps will we succeed in giving the local apps more exposure, and that is our end goal.
Future plans?
More useful features. This is only the first version, and it has the minimum functionality we decided would be useful to users.
