Online shopping gets a new tool

James Flower, MD of ShopDirect, says: "ShopDirect is offering tangible benefits that enable our clients' businesses to grow. We focus on the management of technology so clients can focus on their own business."

MynewLaptop.co.za is a case in point. ShopDirect's solution has allowed this laptop retailer to tap into a market that was previously out of their reach due to the high cost of other e-commerce providers. The company has increased its monthly turnover by 50% in the first three months.

Kobus Rossouw, MD of Mynewlaptop.co.za, says: "ShopDirect was the only company that offered a product that was simple enough to understand, set up and manage - even for someone with little or no website experience - with the scalability to operate a large on-line business with a cost-effective price structure.

"ShopDirect's solution also had all the functionality that we required to successfully operate our on-line laptop shop, such as enabling us to update products and prices through a browser interface from anywhere in the world 24/7, and sales reports."

The ShopDirect e-commerce solution enables retailers to set up affordable, secure, scalable and easy to use online shops. The B2C platform provides online shopping facilities, customised pricing levels (automated management of discounts) per customer, credit card payment processing, and hosting services along with technical and online marketing support.

ShopDirect also provides merchant enablement services for credit card processing to ensure an online shop can transact in as short a time as possible while the business secures its merchant credit card processing facility from the bank.