Orders for ready-made meals have increased on the Maua e-commerce platform during the state of emergency (S.O.E.), according to the local business.

Maua employee, Anamaria Saili, told Samoa Observer that business was steady prior to the S.O.E. but they have noticed an increase for meal orders after it was declared by the Government.

"Business was steady before. It's a new concept because it's cashless with Digicel's mobile money and Vodafone's M-Tala and so it has been steady," she said. 

"However, since the state of emergency our orders have slightly increased. We've seen how our meal orders have increased during S.O.E.  We've done some free delivery promotions for our vendors just to push some sales for them during these difficult times."

There are currently about 30 vendors on board with the Maua app with some going active and inactive over time and they follow a system similar to Uber Eats.

"What we've noticed is that there are more vendors that have been wanting to come on as they were only able to do takeaways so they wanted advertisements. Our vendors are on board with us completely free there are no fees," she added.

"We have our own drivers for deliveries, but we have a similar business model to that of Uber Eats where the drivers can sign up on the app and that could be another form of income for them."

The Maua team is also looking at extending their delivery services to the rural areas as it is where they want to increase their access to, and are contemplating adding utility payments for items such as gas, cash power and Digicel and Vodafone scratch cards to the delivery services they offer. 

The Maua Team has also collaborated with Women in Business  Development Incorporated and Poutasi Farmers to host a virtual night market. This will be done on a pre-ordered basis to reduce risks to farmers and suppliers and will either be delivered or picked up at the Maua Office at Nia Mall on Fridays. 

Maua is a product of Sky Eye which consists of an application and a website. The goal of creating such a platform was to enable vendors to have a platform where they can sell their products and be made available to the public. 

With Sky Eye dealing with GPS and tracking, having an e-commerce site and an addressing system – where people are able to find the vendors and products – was a way to reduce barriers for local vendors.