iTouch South Africa have purchase a 51% share in Digitalmall.com, one of the country`s leading developers of business-to-consumer e-commerce sites.
With the support of their majority shareholder, Independent News and Media plc, iTouch are currently engaged in an aggressive programme of international expansion. Core to the company`s future strategy are the development and implementation of wireless application protocol (WAP) technology, designed to enable cellular telephone subscribers to connect to the Internet via their handsets.
iTouch will use the Digitalmall.com acquisition as a blueprint for the development of their m- and v-commerce products overseas. Digitalmall.com`s partners include Incredible Connection, Reggies, Nando`s, Virtual Florist and Look & Listen. Toys "R" Us, Appliance City and a number of other large retailers are set to go on-line by the middle of the year. Each retailer enters into a joint venture with Digitalmall.com; they in turn develop the site and are involved with the long-term management, full customer care services and running thereof.
"Digitalmall.com`s core offering is eTail store development and management with the focus on permission marketing (see below for more details). This covers full-time store managers, as well as call centre, outsourcing, logistics and fulfillment/delivery of orders," says Digitalmall.com MD, Yaron Assabi. "In addition, Digitalmall.com provide hosting and maintenance, customer interaction services, e-commerce enablement and database mining."
Digitalmall.com provide full call centre support through their state-of-the-art Virtual Call Centre and delivery/fulfillment. "Overall, Digitalmall.com differentiate themselves in terms of the all-encompassing service they provide. This includes developing the on-line store and creating a site that ensures recurring traffic through sophisticated on-line marketing strategies and the ongoing operational, call centre and fulfillment requirements," notes Assabi.
The first e-Tailer forum
The announcement of Digitalmall.com`s new partnership with iTouch was made at their first e-Tailer forum, held on 24 February at Summer Place in Hyde Park. Assabi described iTouch as a "leader in mobile commerce, who can give Digitalmall.com an international roll-out."
He went on to underscore the importance of "permission marketing". "The Virtual Call Centre is fully enabled and can, for example, give preferred customers a personalized greeting. Customers can be profiled on a regular basis and their shopping behaviour analysed, as we have an instant detailed customer database. Digitalmall.com give the consumer the opportunity to tell us what they really want. This will enable us to market ourselves to those that give us permission to do so. It is our policy only to market to those customers who not only give us permission to do so. It is our policy only to market to those customers who not only give us permission to have dialogue with them, but who eagerly anticipate these communications.
"Like the railroad in the last century, e-tailing is totally new, totally unprecedented and totally unexpected. Time and space have collapsed and impulse buying is a significant phenomenon. Some traditional rules still apply, however. Price is more critical than ever, as are speed of delivery, product information, promotions and marketing."
Mobile commerce
Digitalmall.com see cellphones as a key part of their strategy, as these have a higher penetration than the Internet in South Africa. The partnership with iTouch gives Digitalmall.com access to Vodacom (iTouch where instrumental in establishing Yebonet!), and international agreements with cellular network operators in other countries are also in progress.
The website
Marketing director, Garin Toren, gave a brief overview of the Digitalmall.com shopping portal, underscoring among other features the full-image database, which allows a potential customer to view every item on screen before deciding whether or not to purchase. "Virtual Florist" and "Click `n Pay", an on-line grocery store, are already up and running and new departments/aisles will be added to the latter in the course of April. The aim is to grow by 200 items a month. The uniqueness of Click `n Pay is that it is a true Internet model with goods moving from supplier to warehouse and then to the consumer. Prices can thus be kept below those of convenience grocer.
"Digitalmall.com needed a powerful tenant mix, which is what we now have, making us South Africa`s first true on-line central shopping location. Though comprising multiple retailers, we offer the client the ability to make a single payment and various payment options. There is a single customer database, but multiple purchases form various retailers can be delivered in one go, so we offer one-stop customer service interactions."
The proposed timing for the launch is June 2000. Criteria that need to be met are that all retailers are fully integrated, that the delivery engine in place is stress-tested and that 10 to 12 big brand retailers are live and trading. By the end of this year, Digitalmall.com will offer their customers a chose of 24 retailers, each stocking at least 1 000 items, with some, e.g. Look & Listen, having up to 120 000 items for sale online.
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