Online skincare shopping in Kenya usually asks you to pick between two uncomfortable options: pay the full amount upfront to a brand you've never bought from, or order with nothing paid at all and hope it actually gets fulfilled. We use a third option, and it's worth explaining why.
The problem with full prepay
Asking a first-time customer to pay the full price of a KSh 6,000+ kit before receiving anything is a significant ask, especially online where trust hasn't been built yet. It's understandably one of the biggest reasons people abandon a purchase β the risk feels too one-sided.
The problem with pure pay-on-delivery
From the other side, pure pay-on-delivery β where nothing is paid until the parcel arrives β leads to a real, practical problem: a portion of orders are placed casually or on impulse and never actually collected, meaning dispatch time, delivery costs and stock get tied up in orders that don't convert. That inefficiency eventually gets priced into everyone's products.
Why a small deposit is the fairer middle ground
Paying a small amount β currently KSh 500 β to confirm an order does two things: it signals genuine intent to buy without asking you to risk the full price upfront, and it lets us dispatch confidently knowing the order is real. The rest of the total is paid in cash or M-Pesa only once your parcel is actually in your hands.
What stays the same either way
Delivery is free countrywide regardless of payment method, dispatched within 1-3 hours and typically delivered within 24 hours. The deposit isn't an extra fee β it's simply a smaller, fairer first step than paying everything or nothing.
