An e-commerce venture between Engen Petroleum and commerce gateway provider TranZact has reportedly fallen through.
Intended to boost electronic sales of fast moving consumer goods at the Engen Quick Shop convenience store network, the venture was expected to generate R4 billion in revenue over a five-year period.
Last week, however, ITWeb received information suggesting a sudden breakdown in relations between the companies.
Peter Ford, MD of TranZact, confirmed that his company had rolled out the product to 227 of Engen`s 400 Quick Shops since March last year. Full network coverage was estimated by December 2001.
While unwilling to comment at length, Ford explained that in terms of the contract, Engen`s obligation was to promote use of the system among its Quick Shop network. However, only 64 dealers used it regularly, he says.
When TranZact issued notice to Engen to comply with the terms of the contract, the petroleum giant`s reported response was to summarily cancel the contract.
Despite this, says Ford, the dealers who have used the product have been in contact with TranZact, requesting the company to keep the service up and running.
The companies have since been in communication through their respective attorneys, although no successful outcome appears to have been reached.
Regardless of the monetary value of the Engen Petroleum contract, Ford says TranZact is in no immediate jeopardy of failure. "We have other substantial contracts; the money managed through our self service terminals alone amounts to R3 million a month."
Neither Engen nor its legal counsel was willing to comment at the time of publication.
The venture was first announced in March 2000 and the service offering included electronic purchasing of prepaid cellular airtime, prepaid Telkom and Eskom services, flowers through Interflora, tickets via Ticketweb, and electronic Easy Pay bill payments.
In addition, tourism and financial services information, as well as airline ticket, car and hotel reservations were to be made available to customers at the terminals.
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