Peter Gikungu Chege is the proprietor of Gipps Enterprises, running M-PESA shops in different parts of the country.
He ventured in the business in 2010 when mobile money was still a new concept in Kenya after working as a hawker for some time.
Chege partnered with his wife to start the business and by 2018, they had expanded to over 200 M-PESA shops earning him Ksh 187,000 daily commission.
Here is his story as told by WoK.
Chege was unable to study past high school due to lack of school fees and as such, he resorted to alternative ways of making income for himself.
He started hawking undergarments and in no time, he expanded his business to include other clothing items.
“So I started hawking female and male undergarments. This business was hard because I had no specific premises and had to make do with whatever the weather was,” he said
Chege managed to save enough to set up a store in Dagoretti market, and stocked it with electronic appliances.
“A friend sold me his music shop in Dagoretti market. I was to pay him Ksh 25,000 for the shop, but I couldn’t afford to pay for his stock. At the time, I had saved up Ksh 75,000 and after paying him, I was left with Ksh 50,000 for the rent, deposit and my own stock
“I ended up having challenges paying rent consistently and keeping the shop well-stocked. At one point, the landlord served me with a notice to vacate. Eventually, the shop stabilised three years later,” he said.
It was during this time when a friend casually suggested the he opens an M-PESA agency because the only shop in the market had ling queues.
“I visited Safaricom for information on how to become an agent, but ended up frustrated after learning I’d have to own a registered company and have bank statements going back six months,” Chege said.
He shared the idea with his wife, and two rejections later, he was finally accepted as an M-PESA agent with five lines.
However, starting off was not easy because he had to pay rent for five premises he had rented for his M-PESA business.
The M-PESA business was making Ksh 18,000 monthly forcing him to use money from his electronic shop to pay rent among other miscellaneous.
Chege went back to the drawing board and opted to recruit sub-agents and he would make 20 percent of revenue without risking his capital.
When his idea worked, he recruited more sub-agents to have over 200 of them as of 2018 working from different parts of the country.
Along with this, he had five head office tills and super-agents who would help sub-agents meet customer demands including the float.
“I realised that sub-agents play a huge role in my expansion plan, so I’m always appreciative of their efforts and make them feel like part of a unit.
”One of Gipps’ most attractive aspects is our customer service, something which is also attractive to sub-agents. For instance, we have four lines to provide 24/7 customer service,” Chege said.
He noted that some of the major challenges in his business include fraud and robbery as well as rogue sub-agents.
Chege mentioned that some sub-agents have the tendency of pocketing clients’ money when it’s erroneously withdrawn.
