Free Internet kiosks to promote e-commerce

The business of E-commerce in the Philippines has taken root, but the low rate of Internet usage is giving online buying a slow start.

Roberto Alip Jr., founding CEO of Inspired Technology at Work (IT@work), together with technology partner Web Based Technologies, Inc., hit on a bold plan to boost e-commerce by putting up dedicated free Internet kiosks all in Metro Manila and other urban centers in the country.

Only some three percent of the country’s 12 million households, or 300,000 families, are connected to the Web, and analysts think that the number must double to attain a critical mass for e-commerce.

But Alip thinks the industry does not have to wait for the computer-owning population to double. Instead, he advocates setting up free Internet kiosks in public places that people can use to order and buy goods online.

Alip and his group did a three-month test run of the idea when he put up two kiosks at Rustan’s Supermarket in Shangri-La Plaza Mall in Mandaluyong City. It had two PCs that people used for free to surf, e-mail, chat and shop online.

Alip’s company developed a special browser geared for virtual malling, which only allows Philippine advertising and blocks out spam ads.

The kiosks attracted hundreds of people who tried it out. "Most of the people (75 percent) who tried it were non-Internet users, but they liked the idea," Alip said. "Only one percent of them had actually bought something online before, but this kiosk showed that given free Internet access, people will buy online."

Alip’s company developed everything about the online shopping experiment. "We created a new e-commerce model to suit the nuances of our market," Alip said. "Most local e-commerce companies copy US models, and they aren’t doing well, because people here might as well use foreign websites. To compete, local websites have to offer something US websites don’t."

His ideas for Filipino e-commerce are put into practice in his virtual mall, Bestdeals.com.ph, which he put up in April 1999 and has since become a popular and reliable e-buying site. "We designed the website so that it is profitable to merchants, sellers, shop owners, and advertisers," he said. "We even developed a kind of technology to increase the chances of Web browsers coming to the site."

Bestdeals.com.ph was built entirely on IBM technology. "Everything about Bestdeals.comph. is IBM: the eServer xSeies (formerly Netfinity) server, the DB2 Universal Database engine, and WebSphere Commerce Suite (formerly Net.Commerce) e-commerce software," he said. "The system runs 24x7, and we built it with IBM components, because they are reliable, work hard, and industrial grade, meaning that they are designed for very high volume use."

"Developing the necessary Internet technologies was the easy part," Alip said. "The hard part was making e-commerce attractive for businesses ands surfers. We have to offer incentives that would make buyers want to buy on-line. For that, we provide for the free delivery of the purchased product."

His Bestdeals.com.ph site also awards points to buyers, which are assigned and tracked by a technology that his company developed. The points are in the form of e-currency (called "bobbins") that buyers can accumulate and eventually redeem for discounts or prize rewards. The company also developed a system that allows buyers to print discount coupons that can be used at participating retail outlets.

So far, Bestdeals.com.ph is doing well. After over two years of existence, it has 4,000 registered members, regular advertisers and visitors and has given away thousands of bobbins to buyers who visit the site. Once, the website was able to sell 5,000 sets of gel pens three days after its notice was posted. "We sold it to a buyer in Southern Tagalog; we provided for the delivery," Alip said. "Although e-commerce had a slow start, we can look forward to better days, especially if efforts like our free-Internet kiosk succeed."