PayPal seller self-protection, or customer satisfaction?

If you are an online merchant and receiving payment via PayPal, what should you do after receiving this email from PayPal?



It's a notification email saying that payment has been received from buyer. For an ordinary merchant, it's well, payment received and all set to ship the items.

In this case, this merchant has shipped the items without much hesitation, as clothings apparently carry a lower fraud risk.

However, the merchant has received another email from PayPal a few hours later. This time, it's about a case being raised on the said transaction and the related funds have been placed on a temporary hold.

At first thought, this sounds like a fraudulent transaction as the buyer has possibly cancelled the payment. So, this merchant has called the buyer to clarify but the buyer has denied reversing the payment.

7-11 Taiwan - Part 3: Payment

President Chain Store Corporation has storefronts and logistics well covered, but payment is arguably the only piece of puzzle that still has some room for improvement.



icash is a prepaid card issued by 7-11 in Taiwan, sort of like pocket money used for micro-payment mainly in 7-11. It has a point accumulation system and benefits like cash rebate to promote spending.

icash has reached an important milestone this year after launching a co-branded "iu card" (icash悠遊卡). Important in the sense as this contactless card is not only limited to 7-11s, but it can be used for public transportations and selected stores like Starbucks, Sogo, Muji etc.

However, you cannot use icash to pay online yet, with the exception of their own online store - 7net. Obviously, this is the missing puzzle and something for President Chain Store Corp to work on.

7-11 Taiwan - Part 2: Logistics

Logistics, it seems like a simple single word but it contains many aspects - warehousing (storage), location, packaging, labeling, invoicing, delivery, acceptance, tracking, reporting et al.

It's definitely a burden for small-medium-businesses. But in Taiwan, SMBs can rely on 7-elevens, or precisely Wisdom Distribution Service Corporation (大智通文化行銷).



Online merchants can store their goods in WDS's warehouse, and they will be distributed to 7-11s all over Taiwan. Its distribution service benefits not only B2C stores but also C2C sellers.

Let's say while confirming a transaction on Rakuten Ichiba, the buyer has specified a 7-11 outlet (for example outlet B) for collection. Seller will then print the packaging slip online or via the ibon kiosk and handover the item to 7-11 in his area (outlet A). WDS will deliver the item from outlet A to outlet B and the item is ready to be picked up and paid by the buyer.

This helps minimize the fraud and risk of pay first and collect / receive later.

7-11 Taiwan - Part 1: Storefronts

We all know that convenience store, well is just for convenience. You can't expect a huge selection of products there. It's different in Taiwan though.

More than 4,000 of 7-11 outlets + online stores (under President Chain Store Corp) + in store catalog book (for pre-order) + various complimentary services = Super Store!

Knowing that by just having the 7-11s is insufficient, President Chain Store Corp has gathered a few online storefronts under its umbrella since the past 10 years.



They started with investing in the Amazon of Taiwan - books.com.tw (博客来网络书店) back in year 2000. At the moment, around 90% of orders being made online have preferred to pay and collect at 7-11s, heavily rely on the physical storefront. This at the same time has also encourage sales of other products in the convenience store.

7-11 Taiwan - Super store on the cloud?

Taiwan has a great ecosystem supporting e-commerce surrounding 7-11s, the convenience stores. It's arguably the best in the world, bar probably Japan.



President Chain Store Corporation (統一超商) owns over 4,000 of 7-11 outlets located all over Taiwan, and various complimentary services supporting their online and offline retail.

Imagine what you can do when you walk in to their 7-11s...

A meetup with Taiwan E-commerce Godfather

I had a lucky break bumping into Taiwan E-commerce Godfather, Mr Jan Hung-Tze (詹宏志) on a recent PayPal Event in Singapore not too long ago.

詹宏志 and I

In case you don't know who's Mr Jan Hung-Tze, he's the founder of Taiwan largest and publicly listed ecommerce mall - PC Home Online (http://www.pchomeonline.com.tw/), it also serve as a platform for over 8800 online stores (3rd party merchants) at its online mall, in which very recently they just spin it off becoming another public listed company.

Taiwan: E-commerce powered by service

Back in 1998, the Taiwan government has had a campaign to get 1 million businesses to go online and transact.

Similar to most parts of the world, e-commerce in Taiwan had faced the following challenges at that time:

• Maintaining the e-commerce system (software, hardware and infrastructure).
• Staying up-to-date with constant evolution of Internet technologies.
• Integration with financial / payment services.
• Integration with other services such as logistics.

Cloud computing and cool power

Why is cloud computing (云计算) and cool power (酷力量) related? The simplest example is to present the case is Steve Job's Apple.

As everyone knows, Apple has a range of highly popular gadgets and devices, from Mac, iPod, iPhone to the latest iPad.

But wait, what has it got to do with cloud computing?

Let me ask you one question, which gadget do you think is the most successful (or to be precise, the most revenue generating) one for Apple?

How much Amazon spends on Google Ad?

Guess how much Amazon.com is spending on Google Adwords a month?

According to what Advertising Age had revealed (based on a reportedly leaked Google's internal search-spending-document), Amazon is spending a whooping USD $5.85 million on June 2010 alone. (However, it didn't state whether the amount was for U.S. web searches or Global Searches.)

Taiwan PayEasy expansion via Vending Machine?

It not uncommon for us to hear what's started off as online pureplay e-commerce, expanding their business via brick & mortar.

We have seen small business, growing from one-man-show blogshop, to a full fledge webStore, and then follow by a physical retail outlet (which easily double their gross sales, both online & offline)

We have seen also the famous t-shirt site like threadless.com, opening up retail store.

But it's NOT so common B2C pureplay plotting their next growth on....

PayPal Takes Visa & MasterCard, No account needed?

PayPal is taking Visa & Mastercard, this time without the need of registering a PayPal Account?

We know PayPal has been saying buyer can checkout without a PayPal Account (by just using key-in their credit cards details) if they shop with Merchant who accepts PayPal (must be either Premier or Business Account.) Now they have released something "newer" - dubbed as "GUEST PAYMENT" (via Adaptive Payment API).

Is postal service in Malaysia really that unreliable?

There is an online group-buying site being launched in Malaysia a few months ago, which has quickly became popular among local consumers - thanks to the heavily discounted retail vouchers being offered.

However, it seems like many don't receive the vouchers via post. Proof: their Facebook page.

The complaints are mounting and people are being suspicious whether the group-buying service is fulfilling the order. An email exchange with their person-in-charge reveals the following as part of their response:

This is why Asia has big E-Commerce potential

Many have said that Asia has the biggest market potential in almost every industries. The question is, does that include e-commerce?

ComScore has just released State of the Internet with focus on Asia Pacific (July 2010) and it gives us some basic indications on the market potential of online retailing in Asia Pacific.

China largest fashion etailer a Copy Cat ?

China largest fashion e-tailer - Vancl.com, is accused of copying FlyingMouse365 (a Malaysia-based company) design on one of its newly released Graphic Tee.

Just a lil bit of background info.

Vancl.com - founded by a china serial e-commerce entrepreneur, Chen Nian. The same guy who founded Joyo China which being bought out by Amazon in 2004. Vancl is now china largest online-only fashion etailer, processing more than 30,000 orders per day (yes, per day) with total shipment in excess of 100,000 clothing pieces.

FlyingMouse365.com - founded by a young Malaysian Talent - Mr Chow Hon Lam, find his path to fame in Threadless.com. Widely recognized as one of the most successful designer with most T-shirt Design printed by Threadless.com to date!

Now, you be the judge, who's copying who? (on the right is vancl.com's version)

Or is it just plain coincident?

Facebook-MOL Love Relationship

MOL, arguably the largest online payment provider in Southeast Asia is certainly making headlines recently. The Malaysian based company has acquired the declining Friendster by the end of 2009 but many have questioned the decision back then.

"Why on earth the acquisition is worth $100 million?"

There isn't any clear strategy being announced (until today) and we can't argue on why people are being skeptical.

That is, until the announcement of Facebook-MOL love relationship this month, in July 2010.

"A few years ago, Ganesh (the CEO of MOL) can't get response from Facebook but today they email him!" - quoted here.

What does Group Buying mean For Retailers?

Group buying sites like Groupon continue to gain popularity in United States, Europe, Asia and all over the world. China itself has more than 100 Groupon clones, heck?

This resembles Facebook's early years to a certain degree, where everyone is trying to clone and develop some sort of social networking services.

E-commerce = Delivering Happiness

Just finished reading "Delivering Happiness" by Tony Hsieh (CEO of Zappos.com - the world's most successful shoes etailer), ok, or more accurately, the world's top service company just happened to sell shoes online as a start. :)

It's an Entertaining Read, and it makes you reflect on your life. It got me thinking about my 3P - Pleasure, Passion, and the ultimate Higher Purpose, in search for my sustained happiness.
If there's only one book you are going to read this year, let this be the one. After all, no matter what path we were pursuing, isn't it supposedly lead us and people we love to Happiness? If not, why bother?

An Outlook on Asia Pacific's E-Commerce Statistics

Well, this post is all about charts and figures. Read on to get a glimpse of e-commerce outlook in selected countries of Asia Pacific. Hopefully, you will get a rough idea on those markets that you are not particularly familiar with.