11.05.07
Posted in Entrepreneurship, Events, Web Technologies at 11:36 am by adrianoh
Webmaster are notoriously known as geek who sit in front of the computer for 12 hours per day, practically no social life (some mean person call it socially retarded).
I think that’s why webmastermalaysia.com has throw a gathering on 17th, Nov 2007 @ Starbucks, KL Sentral so all geeks can have a nice real face-to-face chat (please, no more MSN, Yahoo, SKYPE, or GTalk) and get to know who behind all those forum nick names.
I will be attending, so see you guys there!
Click here to know more details on this coming webmaster gathering at KL.
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09.20.07
Posted in E-commerce, Entrepreneurship, Online Marketing at 11:11 pm by adrianoh
update: finally thestar had the e-commerce article uploaded online.
A very good article by Thestar’s Intech today on the local e-commerce scene. (At the time of this posting, this article is yet to be uploaded on thestar.com.my, talking about internet speed…) They interviewed the early Malaysia dotcomers on what it takes to run a successful e-commece store, these are all real tips – no hype, no BS, and definitely no MLM.
Below are some highlights from the REAL Internet Entrepreneurs – Be inspired!
Martin Cheah – Founder, Blooming.com.my
- MEPS & Internet Banking help create a more fertile ground for local e-commerce companies to grow.
- The e-commerce business model was extremely competitive, since anyone can do it, so we had to bring something unique to the picture. In this almost zero-entry barrier business, the real fight occurs in the mind of consumers – who the consumers think about when they want something.
- We invested a lot in creating awareness, especially in areas of brand association and “Top of the Mind” recall.
- Blooming.com.my currently receives hundreds of orders a day through its website, can go up to many thousands during peak festive seasons such as Valentine’s Day.
Unique problem - Faces biggest challenges when it comes to packaging and transporting its products as its main product, flowers, need to be kept refrigerated to maintain freshness.
Donald Kee – GM, Corporate Affair, MPHonline.com
- Local budget airline AirAsia also contributed to the increase in e-commerce when it began offering cheap flight tickets online.
- We don’t want to be just another e-commerce site in Malaysia, there’s not enough sales to sustain here, so we are planning to go global.
- Rather than compete with Amazon.com to sell Western publications, we want to position MPHonline.com as the place to go to for Asian titles.
- MPHonline.com currently has a million page views and around 200,000 unique visitors a month.
Unique problem - Faces a challenge in getting Malaysians excited enough about buying books, as Malaysia book industry grows slowly due to the lack of a strong reading culture.
Rodney Koh, Creative Director, xl-shop.com
- Started in the year 2000, dreaming of selling action figures to people in remote areas.
- The very first order comes from British.
- The presentation (web design) of a website is very important as it is the first and perhaps only impression a customer has of an e-commerce company.
- Sometimes customers will test you by sending e-mails to see how fast you respond.
- We never expected our website to generate tens of thousands in online sales, which is similar to one of our smaller physical retail shops, and the operating fee of the website for the entire year costs less than on month’s rent for the shop.
Unique problem - Unlike hong kong and singapore, toys imports are taxed in Malaysia thus disadvantageous in terms of price.
Summary
Notice one similarity? All of them are (except Lelong, started up as an online marketplace) actually brick & mortar stores with an online e-commerce as extra channel for growth. Selling online is all about TRUST! A real-world physical store normally can easier earn trust from the online buyers instead of a pure-play online (consider all else equal).
Bottomline is, it takes great effort to make a business successful, regardless of it being offline or online. The basic principles to run a successful business has not changed and will not change in thousand year to come.
Here’s a recap of the 6 emerging trends that we think that will shape the e-commerce future in Malaysia, and why every business should have an e-commerce strategy in place to stay competitive, and relevant in the near future marketplace.
1) Consumers are much more comfortable purchasing online, starting with the most common items like flight tickets (thanks to cheap airflights available from AirAsia.com).
2) People already buying things like clothes, toys, gadgets (on top of books) online, probably not from you nor your next door competitors, but from retailers thousand of miles away that’s selling on ebay or their online stores.
3) Young professionals with high spending power growing up with Internet (Think Blogging, Think Online Gaming, Think Social Networking) has entered the workforce market.
4) More people adopting e-banking, with Maybank itself already cloaking more than 2 Million registered users.
5) TMNET, with 650,000 Streamyx broadband account and adding up fast that will breach 1 Million latest by 2007.
6) Hardware, Software and Payment Technology that merchant needs to sell online, is far more affordable with significant improvement in quality and usability.
To sum it all up, as the number of broadband users grow, and people getting more and more Internet dependent (can imagine living a day without it?) – The future of e-commerce in bright. It will be an important channel where people play, work and of course, SHOP. So what are you waiting for?
Start selling online today with webShaper e-commerce
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08.12.07
Posted in E-commerce, Entrepreneurship, Online Marketing at 2:07 am by ethan
Zappos.com, one of the most successful ecommerce store in the planet (click here for zappos sales figure)selling apparels and shoes, we are pretty sure you can learn something from them. below are the top 10 list.
1) The e-commerce business is built upon repeat customers. Like most Web merchants in the early days of online, Zappos spend a fortune on high-profile ads to acquire customers. It’s since learned that it pays off to focus on repeat buyers.
2) Word-of-mouth really works online. Unfortunately, WOM can work against you as well as for you, as Zappos realized when customers would CC their friends on complaint e-mails to the merchant.
3) Don’t compete on price. Early on Zappos offered a $10 coupon to anyone who made a purchase. This worked wonders at increasing conversion rates, but did not attract loyal buyers. Once its competitors came out with $15 coupons these customers jumped ship.
4) Make sure your Website is 100% accurate. The company ran into trouble when it used to have the manufacturers drop-ship orders, because their inventory was often off and created backorders and unhappy customers. Even 99% is not good enough, Hsieh said, because that 1% out-of-stock rate can make a big difference when doing significant volumes.
5) Centrally locate your distribution. Originally based in San Francisco, Zappos started out with a California distribution center. But it took too long for customers on the East Coast to get their order, Hsieh said. Now headquartered in Las Vegas, Zappos fulfills out of a DC in Kentucky.
6) Customer service is an investment, not an expense. The goal is to create lifelong relationships with customers, Hsieh said. That’s why Zappos doesn’t measure call times; it’s also why the merchant will even refer customers to a competitor when it’s out of an item. Sounds risky, but when they need another pair of shoes, they will go to Zappos, he said.
7) Start small, stay focused. You’re never going to get a situation exactly right, Hsieh noted; lots of weird little things will come up. When Zappos made the move from shoes to selling apparel as well, we didn’t promote it heavily, we’re slowly learning over time how customers buy clothing online.
Don’t be secretive. Don’t worry about competitors. We believe in sharing as much information as possible with vendors, Hsieh said, including reports on sales, inventory, and profitability. There’s a benefit to having 1,200 pairs of eyes looking at our business trying to help it grow. What’s more, we don’t worry too much about what our competitors are doing. it takes the focus off our customers.
9) You need to actively manage your company culture. Hire people based on how they will fit into the culture, Hsieh said. Zappos is all about customer service, so employees need to understand that and be willing to do what it takes to provide excellent service. If you get the culture right, a lot of the other stuff will take care of itself, he said.
10) Be wary of so-called experts, including me, Hsieh said. Zappos spent a lot of money on CONsultants in the beginning only to find that we really should have trusted ourselves more.Remember, he told the audience: No one knows your customers better than you.
Check out original posting at
http://multichannelmerchant.com/news/zappos_08072007/
Update! Don’t miss out this great post about Zappos Fanatical Customer Services too.
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06.03.07
Posted in Entrepreneurship at 11:12 pm by admin
It’s such excitement to have both titans to be on stage sharing their thought on the industry and of course, each other! Great retrospect. It’s remarkable on what they have achieved and they are set out to do more! (instead of thinking of retiring and start polishing their golf games). These guys really really love what they do, and I think that’s the ultimate secret of their success. Watch on! Like it a lot? Download the video to your desktop using this website and play the file with this flv player.
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05.09.07
Posted in E-commerce, Entrepreneurship, Web Technologies at 1:15 am by yipwt
Statcounter Founder – Aodhan Cullen just being awarded as Young IT Person of the Year at the ICT Excellence Awards.
Update: Aodhan just nominated for Europe’s Young Entrepreneurs 2007, vote for him if you like and use his services!
StatCounter currently has over 1.3 million members and tracks 9 billion pageloads per month for 2 million websites. It’s one of our all time favorite website statistic tracking tool, we love it so much that we decide to build something so our customers can have it easily installed into both the SEO shopping cart and SEO e-catalog software.
Look at the picture above, don’t be fooled by the beard. He’s only 24 now (gosh, makes me feel old). The year he founded statcounter.com was back at 1999, when he was only 16. (i surrender, i admit i’m old) He started off with website design. But his clients were wondering how they can tell whether anyone has visited their website? It was after that he started to develop statcounter and it eventually grow into one of the most popular tool around the world with a PR9! (used to be PR10).
If you want a real-time web statistic counter that’s very easy to use (much easier than Google Analytics), please give statcounter a try. You will love it, especially when you use it with our webshaper shopping cart solution.
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04.18.07
Posted in E-commerce, Entrepreneurship at 10:22 am by admin
Internet Pioneers on “What Not to Do” which we think that can be applied to making your existing online outfit smarter.
Some of the highlights:
Don’t do what users don’t ask you to do. If you want to control your own future, don’t accept outside money, like from VCs. Don’t do marketing or advertising. As a startup company, those are some of the costliest things you can do. Those can chew up an enormous amount of money.
(** Unless you are doing some very extraordinary or VIRAL by nature, We suggest you better do some marketing and advertising. After all, there’s only one craiglist.com in this world. Here’s a good list to start submitting your website to. **)
Read the rest of this entry »
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03.11.07
Posted in Entrepreneurship at 4:51 pm by admin
1. Eric Schmidt, Larry Page, and Sergey BrinExecutives, Google
2. Steve Jobs, Apple
3. Bram Cohen, BitTorrent
4. Mike Morhaime, Blizzard Entertainment
5. Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia
6. John Doerr, Kleiner, Perkins, Caulfield & Byers
7. Craig Newmark, Craigslist
8. Peter Levinsohn, Fox Media
9. Marissa Mayer, Google
10. Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, Youtube
11. Kevin J. MartinChairman, Federal Communications Commission
12. Brad Templeton, Electronic Frontier Foundation
13. Henry Chon, CyWorld
14. Shana Fisher, InterActiveCorp
15. Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, Joost, Skype and Kazaa
16. Matt Mullenweg, WordPress
17. Philip Rosedale, Linden Lab
18. Jon Lech Johansen, DeCSS decryption program
19. Jerry Yang, David Filo, and Terry Semel, Yahoo
20. Jack Ma, Alibaba
21. Brewster Kahle, Internet Archieve
22. Ray Ozzie, Microsoft
23. Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, Daily Kos
24. Jeff Bezos, Amazon
25. Robert Scoble, PodTech.net
26. John Battelle, Federated Media Publishing
27. Lawrence Lessig, Creative Commons
28. Meg Whitman, Ebay
29. Ron Wyden, U.S. Senator, Oregon
30. Michael Arrington, TechCrunch
31. Bruce Schneier, Cryptographer
32. Kevin Rose, Digg
33. David Farber, Interesting-People.org
34. John Hinderaker, Scott Johnson, and Paul MirengoffAuthors, Powerline
35. Vinton G. Cerf, ICANN Board of Directors & Chief Internet Evangelist, Google
36. Tim O’Reilly, Oreilly Media
37. Drew Curtis, Fark.com
38. Gabe Rivera, TechMeMe
39. Dave Winer, Scripting.com
40. Mike Schroepfer, Mozilla
41. Perez Hilton, Hollywood Blogger
42. Paul Graham, Trevor Blackwell, Robert Morris, and Jessica Livingston, Y-Combinator
43. Mikko H. Hypponen, F-Secure
44. Rob Malda, Slashdot.org
45. Nick Denton, Gawker Media
46. Sir Tim Berners-Lee, W3C
47. Leo Laporte, (TWiT) podcast
48. Mohammed and Omar Fadhil, Blogging voice of Iraq
49. Jesse James Garrett, Adaptive Path
50. Tila Tequila, MySpace Personality
Thanks to Matt Mullenweg (#16) and the WordPress Team for such a great piece of software. 
Check out the original posting here at Yahoo News.
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01.17.07
Posted in E-commerce, Entrepreneurship at 11:18 pm by admin
Read this then!
How Zappos became No. 1 in online shoes
Think again, impossible is nothing. And if you want to get some really nice and comfy shoes, don’t forget to check out the home-grown plal.com
Ok, enough brag, time to do my shoes shopping online.
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11.14.06
Posted in E-commerce, Entrepreneurship at 10:31 am by admin
One sentence to sum it all. Better event compared to Ebay explained 2005. We look forward for more! Maybe Lelong can join force with them in throwing such event??
Thumbs up to Jim Griffith, he’s an enthusiastic and entertaining speaker. We all like him.
During FAQs event, lot of questions about Paypal, especially why it yet to support withdrawal to our bank account! (this is expected as mentioned in our previous post). And it’s confirmed that the main issue lies with BNM (Bank Negara Malaysia) policy on currency control.
Just that recently the policy has “loosen” a bit. Keep your finger crossed for much better event next year, and they mentioned they are working on it (the withdrawal part into our MYR bank Account). We hope that they can announce the good news soon. Latest by Ebay Explained 2007.
Till then, don’t forget to Check out some photos of the event if you were not there.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/neowave
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08.28.06
Posted in E-commerce, Entrepreneurship at 5:20 pm by admin
Business back at usual on Monday after the 3-days hectic event.
Summary – It’s a great show. I think all the efforts are worthwhile and we managed to obtain our objective by participating in the event. We have garnered quite a number of requests and interests. For those who dropped by and check us out during the events, hopefully you get to know more about Neowave, it’s webShaper e-catalog or e-commerce solution, and mostly, e-commerce itself as a unique and powerful channel for you to reach out and SELL MORE of your products and services.
Some other interesting e-commerce related booth is there as well – POSPAY. Yes, we just covered PosPay very recently in our blog. I think you will see their ad in the offline media soon.
Special thanks to MIRC for giving us the opportunity to take part in the event.
Well, nothing speaks better than a photo. Check out a few photos taken during the show below: Till then, we will see you around!
Tips for using the FlickR slide show:
1) Mouseover the top to reveal the play bar .
2) Mourseover the bottom to reveal thumbnail of the photos.
3) Click on the photo for further description.
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