Giftland on-line store seen as impetus to intra-regional trade

BY Staff
Published: August 29, 2008 in Business

The promotion of intra-regional commerce as a mechanism for accelerating the CARICOM Single Market process is one of the key goals of the new on-line shopping service launched by Giftland Office Max, according to the company’s President Roy Beepat, speaking with Stabroek Business earlier this week Beepat said that one of the company’s immediate objectives was to place the new on-line service at the disposal of local manufacturers seeking to promote their products and to win new markets in the Caribbean. “Part of the aim of this initiative is to promote a more progressive commercial culture in the Caribbean that will allow for the easier movement of more goods and services across regional borders which is what the Caricom Single Market is all about,” Beepat told Stabroek Business.

Giftland President Roy Beepat

And according to him Giftland’s new on-line service could provide an affordable marketing opportunity for small enterprises in Guyana and the region as a whole which have traditionally been stymied by an absence of adequate marketing opportunities. “What we are also seeking to do is to embrace small craftsmen both in Guyana and elsewhere in the Caribbean whose operations do not allow for resource allocation for marketing by providing affordable opportunities for their products to reach the wider regional market,” Beepat said,

Giftland Chief Executive Officer Ian Ramdeo who spearheaded the conceptualization and implementation of the new on-line shopping service told Stabroek Business that the initiative was also a response to what the company saw as an unsatisfied market among Guyanese residing in the diaspora niche for getting goods to relatives at home. Once we began to look at the project more closely we recognized that it could also be applied to the rest of the Caribbean,” Ramdeo said.

Intra regional movement of goods ordered on-line will be facilitated through a contract between the company and the regional airline LIAT using its Quik Pack service.
Ramdeo told Stabroek Business that while the company had been hoping that its service would also cover the forward movement of goods to North America, existing stringent trade regulations did not allow for such a service at this time.

Getting the project established was quite a challenge since it included complex collaboration with Scotia Bank and other entities. What we found, for example, was that while Scotia Bank was offering an on-line credit card processing service we would have been the first customer in Guyana to access that service. It took about a year just to get the security protocols set up.”

Ian Ramdeo

Transactions through the on-line credit card system are facilitated by a clearing bank in Bermuda which verifies the liquidity of the card holder and authorizes all credit transactions. Programming for some parts of the company’s web site is being done by a company in Trinidad and Tobago while shipping arrangements for goods ordered overseas are being facilitated by a Canadian company.

According to Ramdeo the new Giftland on-line shopping service covers several areas of coastal Guyana including Georgetown, Berbice and Linden. Essequibo is not yet receiving the service.

Beepat told Stabroek Business that the company’s new on-line service had broken new ground in the region. “Part of what motivated us was the realization that most companies in Guyana and elsewhere in Caricom have not taken advantage of the tremendous marketing potential which is available through the Internet.”
Beepat also says that the new service is also seeking to target Caribbean people in the diaspora who provide regular subsidies for relatives in Guyana and elsewhere in the region through cash transfers and barrels.

According to him research undertaken by Giftland prior to the launch of its new service indicated that foreign remittances to Guyana amounted to more than US$200M annually while remittances to the region as a whole amounted to more than one billion dollars.

And the movement of monies by wire transfer “attract sliding scales of charges which would not be applicable with the online business,” and that this reduced cost would afford the recipient maximum use of the funds. “Such a service would be particularly important to recipients of small amounts of cash.”
Beepat also told Stabroek Business that his company was seeking to impact on “the barrel culture” that has become common to Guyana and other parts of the region by offering both senders and recipients a cheaper more convenient option.

“People are still sending large amounts of barrels back to their relatives and friends. What we seek to do through our on-line service is to save people the valuable time spent acquiring and shipping these items. What our research has also indicated to us is that retail prices for some of the items shipped to Guyana in barrels are significantly lower here than in North American, European and other Caribbean markets. When you consider the time factor involved in purchasing high priced retail items and time spent packing barrels together with the cost of shipping, the problems associated with customs clearance and delivery it would be much easier and cheaper to shop online,” he said.

Comments

About Comments

The Comments section of this website is intended to provide a forum for reasoned and reasonable debate on the newspaper's content and is an extension of the newspaper and what it has become well known for over its history: accuracy, balance and fairness.

We reserve the right to edit/delete comments which contain attacks on other users, slander, coarse language and profanity, and gratuitous and incendiary references to race and ethnicity.

Curious about the little images next to each commenter's name ? Go here and sign up using the same email address you used to register for Stabroeknews.com then upload your image and confirm it.

10 Comments

Mainlandweb.com says:

August 29, 2008 at 12:01 pm

I have been calling on Guyanese for the longest while to take advantage of the technologies that are available today. Look at how much business the money transfer services are doing annually. The online businesses can bite big into that. Guyanese who are not too certain about what relatives do with the money they send home, can instead purchase goods from Guyanese businesses online and have it delivered to relatives addresses. Yes buddy, “knak some brane into dem people deh”.
Ramadan is coming up and if someone wants to give some halal food to brothers back home, why aren’t they able to go to Hacks Halal, or any online restaurant and place an order to be delivered at a mosque or so?
Can I order a bucket of chicken and send for my poor friends? No! Can I send some flowers for that special “tweetie-pie”? No! Let’s start to think. Guyanese have too long been fighting down each other over a small market. Personally, I suffered because of this.
Twins Manufacturing, GPC, and so many others can sell their products online. Guyanese live abroad in some areas where they cannot get products from Guyana, such as Mel’s Casareep, Lam’s Chowmein, craft items and so on. I have emailed some of the people above and they never even reply.
In North America, Western Union and Banks are offering a pre-paid Master Card. You can go to their branches and load it up, and use it to shop online as usual.
I can do PHP database websites, using open source software for online stores. However, there are some problems with the various payment gateways and shipping methods that Guyana does not fully support, and may be somewhat costly. You can set up online shops through Yahoo, or uses PayPal to process the payments and so on. See this sample that I made using PayPal. We can add more pages and do all sorts of things. If you want a very complex website with Zen Cart or Oscommerce I can do, but then you would have to hire a full time person to update and keep track of the products, so it is advisable to keep the number of products a little low, like 200 or so. In this way, it would be easy to request someone to make the changes. I am still waiting on Salod Marketing for feedback. My Guyana reference is CNS6 TV
I will certainly continue….
See this sample with basic feature. http://www.mainlandgate.com/products1.html
The entire process for payments is done through Paypal. The codes are generated for each item with PayPal
Rgds,
Red Lion

Reply
Mainlandweb.com says:

August 29, 2008 at 12:02 pm

Put your ads free on http://www.gtrl.tv
Rgds,
Red Lion
http://www.gtrl.tv

Reply
Mainlandweb.com says:

August 29, 2008 at 1:29 pm

What is the rule on VAT for online transactions? Yes, when codes are generated for each item with Paypal, you can set script to add 15 or 20 percent on invoice for VAT. You can also add a flat percentage rate for shipping, or a fixed rate dependin on the area, or the value. It is like setting the rules in php.
Now see what Zen Cart can do
http://osc3.template-help.com/zencart_20843/index.php

However, the developer here has hacked a lot of the major features out to make way for fewer larger images. Zen Cart and Os Commerce does the following:
Numerous Category, such as Jeans, Shirts, Dresses. Then each cateory can have sub categories, such as women’s, men’s, kid’s and so on.
It can have a box in the center of the page that displays 16 or 20 of the products from specific categories or random categories .
You can also have section on index page with COMING SOON items, MOST POPULAR items, RATE THIS ITEM, CLOSEOUTS, MEMBERSHIPS, like ebay. You can have ads displaying in the side to feature SPONSOR BY, you can search the site for any item. You can find products based on the manufacturer ; Jordache, Kent, Toyota, Nissan, Stanley, Dewalt or what ever.
The most important thing of all is the find someone who knows how to edit the software and customize it in order to deliver what the client needs. Yes, banners at the top in flash, bottom and so on.
It is not easy. Zen offer certification for people who know this software….same like Mambo and Joomla. I have worked with Mambo and Joomla in the past too.
Where is this Trini? Aren’t you sure that it is not a Trinidad company who is taking the job and sending it to someone in South Asia to do?
I do these things myself, including Flash Ads. I have made several dummy websites in the past. I put them up and pull them down.
If you guys want I will make anothers one as a demonstration…..again.
Rgds,
Red Lion
http://www.gtrl.tv

Reply
Mainlandweb.com says:

August 30, 2008 at 12:29 am

Hi Moderator,
I am currently customizing a Zen Cart open source software. Anybody who would like to see how it can be transformed into an online store, please watch:
http://www.guyanabeer.com
http://www.guyanabeer.com/STORE
This template is packed with feature, and I can go on and on and on, but if I am to do websites with Zen Cart or Oscommerce for people, using this template and I really dig into all the features, its gonna take real time. I would just set up the basic features. You can rotate banners, have them displaying and interchanging their position randomly and so on. For menu, I will create categories and sub-categories. Once site is loaded with products, they would then start to appear in a table in the middle - the products in the showcase would be selected randomly from various category.
Banners can go on top, bottom and middle and so on.
Because of cost, I would suggest something like http://www.mainlandgate.com/products.html instead. For this I can drop do some dynamic scripting. which I cant do with a PHP site.
However, please follow my work at http://www.guyanabeer.com/STORE
Rgds,
Red Lion

Reply
- El diablo says:
  
  August 30, 2008 at 2:17 pm
  
  mainland, I’m impress how you always strive to promote your site:). You can create banners to exchange with many internet sites to increase your visibility. On the article,i think that Guyana have been too slow to embrace online businesses partly because of Gt&t’s monopoly on the internet in Guyana which i think is illegal. Every business in Guyana should follow giftland’s lead and people should know that they can build free and beautiful websites on بblogspot and on wordpress.
Mainlandweb.com says:

August 31, 2008 at 3:35 am

To make shipping simple, whenever the store owner decides to ship in Guyana and the Caribbean, a zone number - similar to a zip code would eventually have to be formulated. This makes shipping very organised. For local Guyana, weight is not too important. It is the zone, but for overseas that involves air shipment, a fixed method must be applied and stick with. It is a bit more complicated(we are not zoned), but doable. I will make up my own zone system for Guyana and put a rate from GT to individual Zones, so when buyers make a purchase and they state their zone, shipping is calculated automatically, based on what we set in rule or configuration. It is calculated from the zone of the shipper to destination zones.
My motive is to set the rules, whatever the rate is, it does not matter. That can be changed.
These things - the rates to zones- have to be worked out between Shipers and Stores. I will put my own.
The final stage is to make sure that VAT and SHIPPING COST is added to an item, based on our config, when the item is checked out.
I already set Paypal to process payment. However, I have to set the url to return to site page and so on.
Red Lion

Reply
- Mainlandweb.com says:
  
  August 31, 2008 at 8:21 pm
  
  Please note that the Paypal API is now fully integrated into this demo shopping cart website : http://www.guyanabeer.com
  http://www.guyanabeer.com/STORE
  
  The way it is set up you do not have to be a member and log on to the store to make purchases. When checking out click CHECK OUT WITH PAYPAL. Paypal takes care of everything. You will be prompted to log on to your Paypal A/C to pay. However, if you as a buyer, does not have a Paypal account, you can click PAY WITHOUT PAYPAL, and continue to conplete payments. Here you enter your credit card info. Yes, it is secured. You are still on the Paypal website at this stage. The only time you leaves the PAYPAL site is when you complete your Payments and you click RETURN TO WEBSITE or so.
  With your Credit Card, you can get a Paypal A/C online. I think that there is PAYPAL in Jamaica. So the credit card issue can be securely taken care of by Paypal. Their fees are very cheap.
  The next step would be for me to create a few zones and shipping profiles and let those rules reflect in the price when checking out. This is easy to do, but requires some data entry and so on.
  Thank you Moderator. I know a lot of people have watched and looked at what I am doing. You can replace article or push it down, making way for next topic anytime.
  Rgds,
  Red Lion
Mainlandweb.com says:

August 30, 2008 at 5:27 pm

OK El diabo,
Word Press is cool for blogging and various content management sites. I am trying to promote Shopping Cart and Multimedia sites to do live streaming and on demand streaming. I may be very wrong here, but I anticipate that not long from now everybody would be broadcasting in some form or the other.
I have not worked in details with Word Press templates, except like to create some quick blog sites, But for online newspaper my favourite is not Word Press, but Mambo. I am not saying that Mambo is better, it is just that I have worked on Mambo sites in the past .See NCN. It is done with Joomla, which is almost same as Mambo.
Guyana is way behind, I know, but it costs nothing to keep trying. Stabroek News seems to understand this. The other thing about Guyanese is the money part…
My favorite sites are simple html sites with cool dynamic scripting. I can’t change my scroll bars and so on with PHP - haven’t figured how to as yet, have never seen anybody doing so either. Sometimes I feel as if I am in the wrong place.
Rgds,
Abdool

Reply
Mainlandweb.com says:

August 31, 2008 at 12:05 am

Re : http://www.guyanabeer.com
For those who have followed what I am doing, have you seen how fast I have gotten this shopping cart website shaped up. From domain setup to running through lots of scripts and files to customize it, it has already taken its shape. And it has been a very long time I did not do this thing.
Next steps would be for me to set the rules for shipping and VAT, so that the prices would have the VAT and Shipping when you are ready to check out.
Then Finally I would set up the PAYMENT GATEWAY. Instead of store to go through headache to worry about Credit Cards and so on, I would let Paypal handle it. Their rates is very small - smaller than most regular Merchant Bankers that process CC payments, and they are very secure. With Paypal, you can pay with your Credit Card or whatever. You do not need to log on or subscribe to Paypal.
Shipping has several options, such as pick-up and so on.
I will also spend some time and activate some banners at the bottom, tops and in header. However, too many banners tend to confuse. I hope that Mr Dukiran of Salod Marketing is following. I am just doing this little demo here because it is on Staroek, and quite a lot of people are checking out my work. Thank again Stabby.
No, I do not spell check. Lots of mistake……you get the idea.
I like this section. It puts the mine to work.
Rgds,
Red Lion
see http://www.guyanabeer.com

Reply
Mainlandweb.com says:

September 1, 2008 at 11:33 pm

Finally, I am done. This is the last post on this demo. http://www.guyanabeer.com is indeed a demonstration of what a shopping cart website can be like. I included a news window as a little something to bring some traffic.
The most important feature that I have edited this script to perform is a system whereby all areas of Guyana can be named a Zone. When you select an item in your cart, and you click on ESTIMATE SHIPPING, you will see that I created 3 zones; Berbice, New Amsterdam, Arima. They Zones can have different shipping rates and different cost for different weight, such as US$10 for up to 10 pound, US$8.00 from between 10 to 15 pounds and so on.
This is just a demonstration. I had my zones set as countries and the taxes were defined for countries, but after I did not continue to use country as zone, some changes have to be made, but by and large this is it.
I have seen Guyana’s top shipping company with a website done in html with an iframe window in the center. I would not comment on it, but again, shipping companies today can offer much better services with their websites. For example, they can allow people to track their shipment. If I send a barrel to Guyana from Canada, why do I have to worry and call up every time to see where is the barrel? Why can’t I go to the site of these shippers enter my tracking number and find my barrel?
I will do a database website of a typical shipping company and show how packages and barrels can be tracked, just like UPS or FedEx. Next time.
Rgds,
Red Lion

Reply