Our methodology: how we guarantee the reliability of every published price

01 — A trained field agent network

Zando relies on a network of locally recruited collection agents present at markets in Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire. These agents know the markets they cover — some have been working or trading there for years.

Each agent is trained to our collection protocol:

• Identify the effective transaction price, not the displayed price — the price actually charged during a transaction
• Use standardized measurement units (kilogram, liter, piece depending on the product)
• Systematically report: product, market, price, unit, collection date and time
• Flag any observed anomaly: unusually low or high price, stock shortage, large merchandise arrival

02 — Double verification

This is the core of our quality protocol. Every price collected by one agent is independently verified by a second agent present at the same market on the same day, without any coordination.

Validation rule:

• Gap < 10%: the price is validated and published
• Gap between 10% and 25%: a third agent is mobilized for arbitration
• Gap > 25%: both readings are rejected and collection is rescheduled

03 — Automated processing

Data submitted by agents passes through an automated processing pipeline that:

• Checks submission format consistency
• Compares the submitted price against recent history for the same product on the same market
• Detects statistical outliers (prices deviating more than 2 standard deviations from the median)
• Assigns a reliability score to each observation before publication

04 — Human moderation

Observations flagged as anomalies by the automatic system are manually reviewed by our team before any publication. Data not validated by this process is never published on the platform.