Philippines Online Depot

I submitted this in 2004 in an online entrepreneurship contest. Seems still relevant and remain an open opportunity.

VALUE PROPOSITION

This can be a product, a service or something that could create value or income, increase sales, or reduce costs. It may consist of entirely new things or it could be a new way to do old things. The Internet in the Philipines is almost more than a decade old, yet user and awareness penetration level is very dismal. It is misleading to think that all of Metro Manila and major cities are catching-up, thanks to Internet Cafes, when all of the Philippines and its majority of "Small and Medium Enterprise" are nowhere to be found on the Internet topology. One major problem for e-commerce is poor credit card penetration, add to that the notorious hacking incidents. Second, the setting-up of an online presence is costly, aggravated by the complication of different allied service that cause more headache than solutions to a busy businessman. His bottomline is not attune with IT. The proposed service will converge all and make e-commerce a one-step process for entrepreneurs.

THE PRODUCT

Convergence. There has to be a website or a SERVICE that offers convergence of all the allied services for start-up or SMEs easily put-up their own e-commerce site. Online presence often involves - web design and development, hosting, site maintenance, online support for email replies, domain name registration, online marketing, etc. A typical businessman is faced with different companies in setting-up all the above services. Web design companies' core competency is simply designing a site without consideration of the branding, the domain registrar with domain name only, ISP with Internet service only and hosting companies is concern only of hosting. A bigger company has to employ a department in order to the above which can otherwise be outsourced.


Payment Gateway. Two main reason that e-commerce could not take off are, (1) poor credit card penetration and (2) lack of trust in the system due to hacking. The proposed SERVICE in this paper envision offering a service in cooperation with [provider name] payment gateway (PG). PG as is does not adress the second issue. Sure, there is now more available methods of online payment using one's ATM card but does not remove FEAR out of threats. By ONLINE DEPOT offering a co-branding with all the banks enrolled in PG and with PORTAL, this service aims to create a BRAND for a payment facility decicated to Internet use (separate and distinct from their ATM account). One is not likely to transact on the Internet using his ATM account where he leaves his unspent money as savings. Psychologically, he would think that that may be open to hacking. By subscribing to ONLINE DEPOT E-CARD, one is assured that only the amount he wish to spend online is available on the facilities' database!

One unique and differentiating service to be offered by ONLINE DEPOT is the empowerment of the user in all his online purchases, privacy issue considered... There is a 1:1 marketing transaction, yet the ONLINE DEPOT will beat "brick and mortar" because it will leverage on technology or database and e-commerce. Imagine having a Yahoo Account, but instead of email, you open a store account. Imagine the user, visiting many sites and have to transact with one or two merchant. This time, he still purchase the same product, the same service in each of the two different store but has to keep one online transaction through ONLINE DEPOT. Imagine buying construction materials for your house, but instead of going to different hardwares, you proceed to one depot that houses it all and yet there is only one check-out as well. It's not only the user but the merchant that is empowered, where it can avail of the integrated service and bundle its services with other vendors.