Online shopping: The next wave

Everyone deserves a better online shopping experience. At the rate e-commerce sites and shopping portals are being launched around the world everyday, the Internet-savvy consumer has reason to believe that the Web has so much more to offer and that the best things on the Internet are yet to come.

Just as in the world of traditional retailing, online shops have continuously pursued strategies to attract customers and promote Web commerce. Great technological advances in the last few years have leapfrogged online trading and elevated society’s most basic economic activity – buying and selling of goods and services – into a lifestyle thing.

Think of the world’s most famous brands – Gap, Eddie Bauer, Victoria Secrets, Esprit – delivered to your doorstep straight from the shopping capitals of the world and you’ll be on your way to signing up for an Internet connection and an international credit card.

In its latest report, the International Data Corp. (IDC), a global market intelligence and advisory firm that helps clients gain insight into technology and eBusiness trends, says the Asia-Pacific region (excluding Japan) will have an Internet population of 40 million by the end of this year, a huge market which will be spending about $7.3 billion in eCommerce purchases.

In a survey conducted from August to September this year, the IDC found out that while majority of those online still do not make purchases over the Web, a large segment of the Internet population in the region intends to buy online in the next few years and those who have already been initiated into electronic shopping are planning to increase their Internet spending from an average of $800 in the last 12 months to $1,450 in the coming year.

In the Philippines, local e-merchants and e-tailers have reason to believe that Internet shopping is also on the rise despite the glum scenario in the economic and political fronts. A survey last year put the number of PCs in the Philippines at 300,000 and this is expected to grow exponentially in the next few years.

The Internet revolution is also being fueled by the rise of Internet cafés, the number of local websites being developed to serve the needs of local surfers, the growing Internet-related investments of successful brick-and-mortar companies, and the general improvement in telecom and IT infrastructure.

Moreover, majority of Filipino Internet users, as in the rest of Asia, are below age 34 – a young and dynamic bunch of Internet-savvy individuals who are well-educated.

Now, with these sunny projections and optimistic forecast, isn’t it time for a major revamp in the way we shop on the Internet?

Taking shopping to the next level

When the Internet was new, shopping consisted mainly of four things: logging on to an e-commerce site of choice; viewing the desired products through an electronic catalogue; putting the item into a virtual shopping cart and checking out the item by keying in payment information; and waiting for the product to be delivered.

This has remained the way to shop online until this very day. But as the first-generation Web buyers mature, gain more experience and become adept in electronic trading, a lot more functionalities are desired, making virtual malls, e-commerce sites, shopping destinations on the Web and electronic stores to continuously come up with strategies to attract customers.

The main lure of Internet shopping is convenience, convenience and more convenience. In this shopping-crazy country, where almost every major intersection has a mall and shopping has been unofficially acknowledged as the national pastime, online shopping has its own place.

For time-challenged individuals, the difference between shopping electronically and shopping the traditional way is tremendous. What are a few clicks on the mouse compared to braving the traffic and the maddening crowd, not to mention physically hopping from one store to another to find the right product.

However, in the dynamic and fast-evolving world of local e-shoppers, convenience is not only the first and most basic of the Internet attractions. There is now a question of choice (what kinds of products are available on the Internet?), payment options (if I don’t own a credit card, can I shop in your site?), speed (how fast will the goods be delivered to me and is it straight to my doorstep?), security (can I trust you with my personal data and credit card information?).

The advent of globalization has ushered in these expectations from consumers who are increasingly exposed to global trends.

In an attempt to redefine online shopping for today’s Net-savvy Internet shoppers, a virtual procurement portal was recently launched to answer the growing clamor of the local market for a more sophisticated virtual shopping experience.

Bringing e-commerce to your doorstep

Aptly named e-2-door.com, which literally means "bringing e-commerce or the Internet to your door," the new online shopping destination started with the idea of enabling Filipino shoppers to tap into the rich e-commerce contents of the best shopping sites in the world. For as it is now, we are really only "window shoppers" in the World Wide Web.

Says Monchu Garcia, president of e-2-door Inc., "Filipinos can go online, they can browse through any site in the world, but more often than not, they cannot buy the products they want from these websites."

He explains that there are at least two major reasons for this: about 80 percent of websites based in the United States do not ship internationally, and many Filipinos do not own international credit cards. "We call this the fulfillment and settlement gap," he says.

"When we built our site, what we intended to do was to bridge this gap and open up the doors for Filipinos to shop globally. And I believe that we have accomplished this by coming up with a portal and a browser that allow users to do exactly that: search the Internet for products, procure them and have them delivered straight to their doorstep," he says.

In contrast to most local electronic shops, e-2-door.com does not have an electronic catalogue which contains pictures and descriptions of products and sometimes third-party reviews to assist buyers in making the purchase decision. Instead, the site serves as a gateway to thousands of websites and millions of products found in websites all over the North American continent. And this will eventually be opened up all over the world.

"We give our customers the power of choice," says Paolo Abad, vice president and chief information officer of e-2-door.com.

Another great thing about the site, he says, is that shoppers will be billed at door-delivered cost. This includes the actual price of the item, the shipping and handling fees, plus duties and tariffs. Customers will see the full cost online in real time.

"Unlike if you shop out of e-2-door," explains Abad, "what these international shops will mostly do is quote to you the item price plus the one-time shipping and handling charge. The problem is when the item arrives, your broker will call you and tell you that you have to pay additional cost for duties and taxes. But if you shop through e-2-door, you only have to pay once and we also provide you a choice regarding the shipping method – whether you want it to be shipped by air or by surface – and right to your doorstep."

The promise to deliver right to the customer’s doorstep is a crucial competitive advantage of e-2-door.com. The procurement portal is owned by Orient Freight, a 27-year-old company that is currently one of the top logistics firms in the country with over 300 offices in 120 countries. Its worldwide network and professional expertise in handling deliveries are enough assurances for customers that the items they purchased on the Web are in good hands.

This is specifically advantageous to overseas Filipinos who want to shop for loved ones back home. By shopping through the e-2-door channel, there will be no balikbayan boxes to pack, no follow-ups to be made with the freight forwarder. All they have to do is surf the Net for the items they want to buy, check out all the items, pay for them once and e-2-door will take care of sending them home to the Philippines.

Garcia and Abad also reveals that e-2-door.com is not only a B2C site but also has a B2B retail component. The site serves not only individual shoppers but also small and medium-scale enterprises. E-2-door can actually source spare parts or products not available locally and hard-to-find items that are crucial to the operations of small businesses.

Since its official launch last month, the two e-2-door.com executives reveal that they have received enthusiastic responses from SMEs and have, in fact, processed requests for such items as pellet grinders, incubator thermostat, a heating lamp for a reptile, and special parts for high-end cars.

E-2-door.com is not only setting its sights on the Philippine market. This early, it has plans to serve the Southeast Asian market as well. It envisions the site to become a top-of-the-line e-commerce portal in the Philippines and in the Asian market.

As IDC reported, Asia’s surging base of Internet users and e-commerce revenues will present lucrative opportunities to those who understand the Asian Internet economy and diversity well. E-2-door.com seems to be on the right path because it is leveraging the core competency of its brick-and mortar-business – Orient Freight – and strongly focusing on fulfilling the needs of the Filipino and the Asian shopper.

Now is not seemingly the right time to think about shopping galore and splurging activities. The economy is down in the dumps, prices of basic commodities have hit the roof, so to speak, and the country is in nervous teeters as it awaits the impeachment trial of a president. Yet, politics or economic issues aside, Internet shopping is nowhere hitting the wall. It is only beginning to blossom and it is actually one of the sunrise industries.

This is only the beginning.