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Indonesian ecommerce shows promise as Internet takes holdIndonesia could be just about to start on what might well be a truly remarkable ecommerce adventure. Fast Internet access has now become quite readily available in the biggest cities like Jakarta and Medan. Prices are reasonable, and some consumer services here, e.g 4G access via WIMAX, aren’t yet even available in Australia. Moreover the Internet has now become a quite important focus of attention for ordinary Indonesians.
A hot topic of gossip everywhere at the moment is a celebrity Internet porn-video scandal, (even if most of the actual video viewing is being done on mobile phones).
As a result, the government’s minister for IT, an Islamic conservative, is once again pushing for controls over ISP’s and Internet content.
Other indicators that Indonesia is joining the global mainstream are recent accreditation of an Indonesian domain name registrar –
PT Ardh Global Indonesia (www.ardhosting.com) and an announcement by Google
that local publishers will soon be able to get paid locally via Western Union for click throughs on their Google Adsense ads.
For more information see our story and pictures in the eCommerce Report. Malaysian ecommerce gets boost with Paypal now accepted at local eBay marketplaceIn Australia, online transactions from Malaysia are still black-listed by many payment gateway providers because of historically high levels of fraud. But there is little doubt that within Malaysia, ecommerce and online shopping are both growing rapidly, albeit from a small base. Major international ecommerce players are starting to take note. eCommerce briefing for delegation of officials from Henan Provincial AdministrationAeCN chairman, Stewart Carter, was the lead presenter at an ecommerce briefing of industry officials from the Henan Provincial Administration (China) in Melbourne on 2nd Sept 2009. He was supported by a Melbourne IT executive, and a Mandarin translator, in giving the bi-lingual presentation. The 21 person delegation included senior officials from the Henan Province Industry & Commerce administration, as well as officials from each of Henan's main prefectures.
Henan is well-known as the cradle of Chinese civilization and has a population of just under 100million people. AIMIA announces ecommerce industry awardsAustralia’s Interactive and Multimedia Industry Association (AIMIA) has announced a new award competition, for ecommerce services and websites.
Nominations are now being invited in seven different categories. Entries opened on August 5th and will close on August 20th. Australian banks not interested in safer alternatives to Visa and Mastercard for online paymentsAustralia’s major banks aren’t interested in a safer, EFTPOS-based system for online payments. They prefer to lock online shoppers and merchants into the riskier, more expensive (and profitable) global schemes of the US credit-card companies, Visa and Mastercard. That is abundantly clear from an online payments discussion paper released this week by the Australian Payments Clearing Association. Both Uighurs and Chinese attacking Film Festival siteChinese nationalists are undoubtedly responsible for most of the online attacks against the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) online ticketing system but pro Uighur groups are also involved. So says a director of Melbourne based eFirst.com.au, developers of the online ticketing system and associated online payments gateway at the MIFF web-site. Australian Businesses likely to have been hit by massive card security breach at Network SolutionsSo many sites have been hit, and so many cards involved that it is very likely at least some Australian businesses and credit-card holders have been hit by the recent massive card security breach at US Internet giant - Network Solutions. According to a statement released by the company, “unauthorised code” was installed on 4,343 of the ecommerce web-sites
it is hosting. New top level Internet domains up for debate at ICANN 35 in SydneyProposed new global top level Internet domains (gTLDs) will likely move closer to becoming a reality at the upcoming Sydney meeting of the world’s top Internet rule-making body – ICANN ( Internet Corporation on Assigned Names and Numbers) later this month.
Many larger businesses are expected to want a global top level domain (gTLD).
It will enable those businesses (e.g. Ford) to have their brand accessible at www.ford instead of
www.ford.com.
Retailers offer 8% gift card bonus on ANZ’s smartypig.com.au redemptionsWith 5% interest paid quarterly, Facebook and MySpace friends having access so they can pay in to your account, and “extra value” bonuses of up to 8% when funds are redeemed at a major retailer as a gift card, the ANZ Banks’ new www.smartypig.com.au savings account is certainly different.
No doubt the bank has high hopes it will prove very popular with the millions of younger Australians who spend a lot of their time ‘hanging out’ at social networking sites like Facebook or Myspace.
New online advertising figures suggest trouble for Seek, Carsales, Trading PostOnline advertising continued to grow in the last quarter of 2008. But growth is slowing and spending on classifieds online is already falling.
These are the headline stories from the latest official industry statistics released this week by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB).
Google continues to dominate the online advertising landscape, as does spending on search engine advertising generally. ACCC gives green light to Stadium Australia Visa monopoly; but knocks back Woolies ePump plan.What changed Graeme Samuel's mind? Late last year the ACCC chief said that a Visa PayWave monopoly plan for Stadium Australia was anti-competitive and not in the public interest. But last week, Samuel approved the plan. And on the same day he knocked back a Woolies plan for an Everyday Money card monopoly at its new ePumps. We asked ACCC Graeme Samuels to call us an explain the difference.
Here's what he had to say. Online retailer - conference and expo scheduled for Sydney in August 09
Sydney’s Darling Harbour convention and exhibition centre will be the venue on the 18th and 19th of September for ‘Online Retailer – a new event being described as an Australasian Exhibition &
Conference for Internet Retailing. That’s the promise of Mark Harvey, managing director of the event producers. Read more
$12.7billion in mostly online betting turnover at stake in Centrebet bid for IASBet.comCentrebets $20million hostile takeover for its rival, International All Sports (IAS) has underlined just how big Australian online betting has become. At least $1.7billion in gambling turnover is involved, most of it wagered online and mostly in Australia. But this takeover is as much a human story as a business story. Thats because whilst both companies are corporate bookmakers, listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, they are both very much still family businesses. Centrebet is really Sydney based trackside bookie, Con Kafataris and his family.
Their takeover target, International All Sports (IAS) is Mark Read’s company. Woolies spits the dummy over opposition to it plans to lock out other credit-cards at ePumpsGiant Australian retailer, Woolworths, has threatened to take its bat and ball and go home if it can't lock out competing credit-cards at new ePumps on the forecourts of its Caltex/Woolworths and Caltex/Safeways co-branded petrol stations. Woolies dummy spit has been revealed in submissions to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) published on the corporate regulator’s web-site. Online market leadership doesn’t protect EzyDVD from collapseOne immediately obvious lesson from the collapse of DVD retailer, ezyDVD, last month is that online market leadership doesn’t necessarily translate into commercial success.
That point is underlined by the release this week of Hitwise data showing www.ezydvd.com.au as being the clear market leader amongst online video and games retailers in Australia. US online shoppers soon to get Paymate option at www.ebay.com and other US sitesUS online shoppers at www.eBay.com will soon have the option of using Paymate to pay for their purchases in US dollars.
Dilip Rao, Paymate’s founder and CEO, said that the Paymate option will be fully integrated with eBay’s express checkout. Online shopping – the ‘Green’ alternative?Doing business online, shopping online and ecommerce generally, is surely a more environmentally friendly way of shopping and/or doing business.
But is it really as ‘green’ an alternative as it first looks? Tatts accepts, Betfair declines Victorian licence bid; incumbent TABCorp stays 'mum'Online betting exchange operator, Betfair, says it hasn’t made a bid for TABCorp’s monopoly Victorian wagering licence.
But the Tatts Group, owners of UniTAB, says it definitely has. And TABCorp claims it isn’t allowed to say whether it has lodged a bid to keep its licence.
Telecom NZ closes Ferrit.co.nz - New Zealand's largest online shopping mallTelecom NZ is closing Ferrit.co.nz, said to be New Zealand’s largest online shopping mall.
The shock news was announced via a corporate media release dated Monday 12th January, and has also been published on the home page at www.ferrit.co.nz. NetRegistry buys into Au Domain MarketplaceNetRegistry has paid an undisclosed amount to become the joint owner and operator of the Australian domain name marketplace - www.netfleet.com.au
Netfleet founder, David Lye, said that the investment should help to grow the marketplace, which already has over 10000 Au domain names listed for sale.
No Internet future for TABCorp ‘Trackside’ The Victorian government’s gambling regulators are clever people. But they guaranteed Trackside would never become popular. And now they've almost certainly ruled out any Internet future for wagering on virtual horse-racing
games like Trackside. This is how they did it? Local online payment gateway, eWay.com.au, reports 47% annual growthMatt Bullock is the founder and CEO of the Canberra-based business said to be “the major payment gateway in Australia for online retailers” – eWay. eWay has undoubtedly grown rapidly over the ten years since it first set up operations. Even the global financial crisis isn't stopping its growth.
“We’re just not seeing it in our business” Bullock told eCommerce Report this week. PayPal reports some online sales categories up this XmasPayPal’s Australian managing director, Andrew Pipolo, has reported that at least some sales categories are doing OK online this Xmas, even if not all. The first two weeks of Xmas are usually the busiest two weeks of the year, said Pipolo, and the early indicators are that this year is no
different in that respect. Mastercard blames RoseOnly for spike in online card fraudMastercard’s Australian chief, Albert Naffer, has blamed Sydney online florist, RosesOnly, for a spike in last year’s official statistics for online credit-card fraud. Card not present (CNP) fraud jumped from 38.6 cents to 50.2 cents in every $1000 worth of transactions in the statistics for the year to June 2008. Doubts over claimed 70% sales increase for eCorner online storesJohn Debrincat, the Sydney based owner of online shopping software vendor- eCorner, said this week that Australian businesses using his software has grown their sales 70% over the past year. He also claimed average order values at the 170+ local businesses were up 30%. Reserve Bank of Australia to regulate ATM feesCustomers of Australia’s big four banks should soon see a dramatic reduction in transaction fees on withdrawals from other banks’ ATM’s. But a Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) decision to regulate the ATM system announced yesterday could also see big hikes in fees for using non-bank ATMs, and particularly in rural and regional areas. Read moreDStore.com.au sales up despite global financial crisisby Stewart Carter Australia’s specialist online retailers are certainly being affected by the Global Financial crisis but sales appear not to be falling as much as traditional main-street, bricks and mortar retailers. Brisbane headquartered Dstore, is one of Australia’s largest and best-known on-line department store operators. Read moreDomain name regulator - auDA - inventing fake complaints?Queensland’s Supreme Court has apparently been told that Australia’s domain name regulator, au Domain Administration Ltd (auDA), has been inventing complaints so that it can strip people of their domain names. Details of auDA’s alleged actions were published on a number of local domain name blogs last week based on a statement released by Melbourne headquartered domain name registrar, Domain Directors. Read moreReserve Bank of Australia to regulate ATM feesCustomers of Australia’s big four banks should soon see a dramatic reduction in transaction fees on withdrawals from other banks’ ATM’s. But a Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) decision to regulate the ATM system announced yesterday could also see big hikes in fees for using non-bank ATMs, and particularly in rural and regional areas. Read moreVISA monopoly deals at ANZ Stadium, Sydney Cricket Ground illegal says ACCCVISA’s plan for a 3 year monopoly on contactless cards at Sydney’s ANZ Stadium in Sydney has been deemed illegal by competition regulator, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). So too has a plan for Macquarie Bank issued VISA cards at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Read moreAussie online business owners report strong growth despite Global Financial CrisisThe Global financial crisis may be hitting US online businesses badly, but local online business owners are still claiming very strong growth. Kristina Karlson from Kikk.k, and Larry Bloch, from NetRegistry are cases in point. Read moreBig turnaround in finances puts AuDA Domain Name regulator in the redA turnaround of more than half a million dollars in its financial situation over the last year has seen Internet domain name regulator – Au Domain Administration Ltd - reporting a small loss for the financial year 2007/8. Read moreJCPenney Australian onlineshop lasts less than 3 monthsWhy would venerable US department store retailer - JC Penney - pull the pin on its Australian online store less than 3 months after it opened?
Was the business model flawed? Were shipping and handling costs uncompetitive? Or was it more that US sourced goods were no longer price
competitive because of the collapse of the Aussie dollar? Or was it just because of the shocking collapse of the US economy?
Those are questions for which all local online merchants are very keen to see answers. ANZ claims 5000 customers for Money Manager in first monthANZ Head of Online Banking, Sam Plowman, says more than 5000 people have signed up to its new Money Manager service since it was launched in t he middle of last month. He said that the service, which is only in beta or testing mode, is seeing a “continual flow of new registrations every day” and that without any marketing. Shout.com.au sold for $1000 at TRAFFIC conference auctionDemand for premium Aussie domains was decidedly soft at the auction held as part of the TRAFFIC conference on the Gold Coast last week. A listing of the sales results posted on the web at a blog site shows that none of the au domains on sale sold for more than $US500 and many failed to even attract a bid.
It wasn’t as if the names weren’t high quality, or the target prices were offputting. New ANZ online services raises security, legal questions.Yesterday I gave the security codes and PIN numbers for my NAB credit-card account to the ANZ. I hope that doesn’t mean I’ve breached my contract with the NAB. But if I have then its certainly the ANZ’s fault. Because they are inviting customers of any bank, and not just ANZ customers, to give up their account security codes and passwords to their new online service. 2.15% of European online shoppers are AustraliansAustralians are adventurous online shoppers. They’ll buy from just about anywhere and indeed new data from Germany’s Deutsche Bank suggests that 2.15% of European online shoppers are, in fact, Australians. Tobias F. Hauptvogel, Head of Marketing & Communications at Deutsche Card Services GmbH told eCommerce Report that “2.15% of all non-European retail shoppers come from down under. Australia’s online ad spend up 9% to $450million in Sept qtr 2008Australia’s online ad spend up 9% to $450million in Sept qtr 2008 Australia’s spend on advertising online continued to grow strongly in the three months to September 2008. At an estimated total of some $451million, the total spend was up 9% on the quarter to the end of June. Australia bludging, not pulling its ecommerce weight, says visiting US lobbyistSteve Del Bianco, CEO of the US e-commerce lobby group, Netchoice, has called on Australia to stop bludging and start pulling its weight on the great Internet and ecommerce issues of the day. The provocative allegation appears to have been deliberately devised as part of a successful PR campaign to get publicity for Del Bianco's visit down-under this week,
where the US lobby group is apparently trying to open an Australian chapter. New national online marketplace for taxi licensesMelbourne taxi operators are now not the only ones to have a simple, safe and inexpensive online service allowing them to buy and sell licenses.
With the opening of a new national online marketplace at www.nlx.com.au, operators in other places
now also have the chance to buy, sell and lease licenses. How to sell your Au domain name.Our recent seminars on 'How to sell your Au domain names drew expert audiences in both Melbourne and Sydney. They revealed fascinating industry-insider secrets about the regulator, auDA, and its controversial and complicated rules on transferring domain names.
OnlineShop 2007
Details of the speakers at our Online Shop 2007 programme in Melbourne on 18th April 2007 are at the conference web-site along with along with some photo's from the event. Check out onlineshop2007
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