By Emmanuel Narokobi

Okay so I finally caught up with Glynn Low, the Marketing Manager of Data Nets Ltd and owners of PNG’s first e-commerce website Esi-Shop, so we could hear from them what their plans are. Please feel free to leave your comments and questions.

Hi Glynn, how are you? I wanted to talk to you about Data Nets e-commerce initiative, how did this come about and who was involved?
GL: E-commerce has finally hit PNG and it will change the way people do business. It will bring services closer and more convenient to people. It will enable them to buy and (in future) sell things to a global market. It was an initiative that we thought was needed in PNG.

What is your aim with the e-commerce initiative?
GL:Primarily this is an avenue that allows people to receive payment in PNG Kina instead of a foreign currency. This will allow people to develop portals and e-commerce websites in future.

What companies have you set up e-commerce for and how are they going with it so far?
GL:The concept of e-commerce had to be demonstrated and hence we chose to sell GSM Recharge cards. Since then Air Niugini are selling airline tickets and PNG Power also vend easipay using e-commerce.

Your company has started the esi-shop website, how has that been running in terms of sales and what have you learned from its usage?
GL:Sales have been better than expected. Given that purchase requires a credit card the market size currently in PNG is quite small, however as time and options grow it is only likely that more people will have access to credit and debit based Visa/Mastercards.

How can website developers like us or anyone for that matter go about setting up an e-commerce website?
GL:It is very early days yet. The full impact of e-commerce and security procedures is crucial. At present, we obviously look at adding products on esishop.com.pg. The ability to process and transact through the payment gateway should be available to anyone.

One of the issues that concerns me is that most people in PNG have eftpos bank cards and not credit cards, how do you think the banks should address this?
GL:There is nowhere in the world that accepts EFTPOS cards on the Internet so we’ll put that one to rest. As far as credit cards, it only takes a little bit of effort for people to fill in an application form at the bank to apply for the credit card. There are also debit cards available where you can deposit money and use it from there. In short, you must have a credit card to trade on the Internet. In other countries like Australia, it is very easy for the everyday citizen who has any measure of disposable income to obtain a credit card. It will become easier and easier to obtain a credit card. The whole PNG E-commerce industry will evolve. We’ll get there and we do see this as a long-term play taking 3-5 years at least.

We also did a post on our blog sometime ago about pre-paid e-commerce do you think we can see something like this in the future for PNG?
GL:We’ve only just started. Anything that has demand will certainly require a supplier. It comes down to people who are willing to put the time and effort into seeing these things through.

From where you are now with the esishop website and e-commerce capabilities, how do you see the future of e-commerce in PNG developing and who will be the important players in this?
GL:Our www.esishop.com.pg slogan says Shop Online, Anytime, Anywhere. The key players will be the banks who supply the credit cards and debit cards. Their role is to get the buyers online as soon as possible and to make it easy to do so. The other key players are suppliers. They need to get together with website developers and build websites that will be easy to use and to make their products and services easy to deliver across the Internet.

And lastly why should PNG embrace e-commerce?
GL: Because we have issues such as busy work schedules, remoteness of people, security concerns, delays in product delivery that can be solved by ecommerce. We also have products and services that the world needs to know about. Our suppliers need to start thinking with the Global Market in mind. When you’re on the Internet, it enables you to deal with customers not only in PNG but the rest of the world. It opens up the markets significantly and allows our country ultimately to prosper. If business in PNG can grow by supplying to the whole of the world, then it can only be good for PNG.

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Related e-commerce posts on this blog:

• First PNG e-commerce website introduced
• Air Nuigini goes online
• Pre-paid e-commerce, could we apply it in PNG?
• The emerging environment for e-commerce in PNG