Public · no account needed
The directory
One public list of everybody on the rail: stores, workshops, carriers, cooperatives, creators. Searchable by anyone, and wider every time somebody joins.
Access
Public — no sign-in to search
Listing
Automatic on joining
Offline
Degrades, does not stop
Status
Live
Why it is not a listings site
The same record the platform settles against.
A business directory usually goes stale the week after it is published, because it is a copy. Somebody types the details in, the details change, and nobody goes back.
This one is not a copy. The entry you search is the participant record the platform already uses to route an order, raise an invoice and settle a payment. If a business changes its details in order to keep getting paid, the directory changed at the same moment. There is no separate marketing listing to fall out of date, because there is no separate listing.
That also sets the honest limit: the directory knows what the platform knows. It is not a census of Zambian business, and it does not pretend to be. It covers participants on the rail.
What you can find
Who is on it.
Businesses
- Retailers and wholesalers with a live storefront
- Workshops, service providers and trades
- Cooperatives and producer groups
- Carriers and logistics operators
People
- Creators with a Zedi account
- Independent traders and sellers
- Field staff acting for an operator
What a listing carries
- What they do and where they are
- Which services they accept payment on
- Trust tier — what they have evidenced, not what they claim
- A route to transact, not just a phone number
Trust tiers
Nobody is turned away at the door.
A listing shows the tier a participant has actually evidenced. Entry is at the tier you can prove, and you climb it by trading.
This matters more than a verification badge. Identity on most platforms is all-or-nothing: clear the bar or you do not exist. That excludes exactly the informal traders the economy runs on. A tier is a gradient instead of a cliff — you join at the bottom, transact, and the history you build is what moves you up. It is also the precondition for credit that most Zambian businesses cannot access, because for the first time there is a transaction record to lend against.
Away from a signal
It works badly rather than not at all.
Directory access is offline-capable. On a poor connection it degrades — slower, cached, fewer results — instead of failing.
That is a platform-wide position rather than a directory feature. Systems built for reliable connectivity treat a dropout as an error state and stop. Here, poor connectivity is the normal operating condition for a large part of the country, so it degrades the experience and does not stop the business.
Related
Zedi, for creators
Commerce edition
All six editions