Phoenix Distribution is revolutionising distribution and content delivery, through its introduction of a 'white label' solution for its clients who are wanting to boost their e-commerce offerings and platforms via which their content is delivered. Simon Campbell-Young, CEO of Phoenix Distribution says the Phoenix 'stores' cater for a myriad media options, including mobile content, movies, audio, Electricity, plus Mac and PC applications.
The stores are created for customers by Phoenix Distribution's team, while customers use their own branding on the e-commerce sites. "The entire site is branded and personalised to the customer's specific needs and requirements, and each site is custom-built to allow e-tailers to offer software products of their choice in the most cost-effective manner," says Campbell-Young.
Currently, Phoenix's digital customer base includes retailers, resellers, telcos, banks, Tier One hardware vendors and distributors, as well as the mobile handset manufacturers. The stores currently provide access to a vast amount of digital content, with over 2 000 titles available, covering security, multimedia, business, system utilities, backup and recovery, educational software, and games, many of which are not available in physical stores. In addition, the range is constantly evolving as Phoenix adds brands and vendors on a regular basis.
"As one of only two distributors with the right to sell Microsoft's product range via ESD (electronic software download), and with our infrastructure, we are seeing massive uptake of this offering," Campbell-Young says. "A ready-built download store that not only includes the Microsoft range, but all of our other products too, provides customers a bespoke software download store 'out of the box' so they don't have to put the hundreds of thousands of rand into the development side."
Phoenix also offers hosting and maintenance services. "All build and maintenance activities are conducted in-house, and should the customer require the site to be hosted externally, the company hands all relevant information over to the hosting company in one handy package," he explains.
"Over and above the building and hosting of the stores, Phoenix handles payment and delivery for our customers," says Campbell-Young. "We have built our own backend deliverables, including content delivery as well as ERP and payment gateway integration. This digital system caters for once-off and monthly billing cycles, allowing for annuity revenue software deployment and bespoke API integration."
However, should a customer wish to handle these elements themselves, Phoenix offers a unique API to allow its clientele to be completely hands-on and manage all payment and delivery via its own site or system. In this way, once a payment has been made from a partner's site, Phoenix will deliver a license code and download link to the partner, who will in turn pass this on to their customer.
To meet the needs of the booming mobile device market, Phoenix offers a wide range of mobile content, and has partnered with various telcos and mobile service providers to create white label solutions packaged as per the service provider's requirements.
The first 'white label' site to go live was Incredible Connection's download store, www.incredibledownloads.co.za, with other customers including Dion Wired, HiFi Corporation, C.N.A and MWEB close behind. Campbell-Young explains that Incredible Connection has also opted to leverage Phoenix's expertise in merging the in-store and online sales experience.
"With Incredible Connection, we will even take it a step further, offering scratch cards with promo codes in stores to people who purchase hardware. This will increase attach rates of the likes of Microsoft software, and introduce customers to the benefits of the download store. It's all about content delivery. Phoenix provides a ready-to-go solution for partners looking to expand their brands in Africa, who don't have hundreds of thousands to spend on development."
* Article first published on itweb.africa
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