eBay erwähnt und empfiehlt FECC in einem Artikel. - 500 Beiträge pro Seite

[Dollarnick]

Dot-Comrades Start Small
Chinese Answer To EBay Builds Business Off-Line
By Clay Chandler
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, March 26, 2000; Page H01

SHANGHAI—What propelled Gao Xiaoyi to the vanguard of China`s e-commerce revolution was her search for a blue-eyed boyfriend--for her cat.

After months of combing street markets for a proper mate for her beloved Bon-Bon, a snow-white Persian with piercing azure eyes, the 25-year-old civil servant turned to Eachnet.com, a "personal trading" World Wide Web site she had seen advertised in the newspaper. Days later she was bidding frantically for a snow-white, blue-eyed Persian male for sale in nearby Baoshang.

The belief that the rest of China`s 1.3 billion consumers will learn, like Gao, to seek fulfillment on the Web has sparked an outburst of investment in this socialist economy. In big Chinese cities such as this one, billboards and banners touting dot-coms are becoming as ubiquitous as once were posters of Chairman Mao.

A horde of ambitious Chinese netrepreneurs is chasing a once-in-a-lifetime chance: to create the equivalent of Amazon or eBay in what many predict will become the biggest online marketplace in the world.

"We think we can attain even greater dominance in China than eBay has achieved in the U.S.," says Eachnet`s 26-year-old chief executive, Shao Yibo, who has modeled the company he founded after the San Jose-based Internet auctioneer.

He may succeed. But Shao and his e-comrades are in for a long march.

For all of China`s promise, the reality is that it remains a poor, developing economy, lacking most of the social and commercial infrastructure that Web merchants in America have come to take for granted.

Nearly 10 million Chinese--fewer than 1 percent of the population--have access to the Internet. Far fewer have credit cards or personal checking accounts. And there`s no equivalent here of UPS or FedEx.

Zhongguo Shang Bao, a prominent Chinese business daily, estimates that e-commerce sales in China topped $24 million in 1999, double the previous year. (By contrast, e-commerce sales in the United States last year were estimated at more than $5 billion.) The publication forecasts that online sales will reach $97 million this year and soar to $1.2 billion by 2002.

But, at least for now, the vast majority of what passes for online commerce in this country actually takes place off-line--as Eachnet`s proprietors know all too well.

Transactions facilitated by Eachnet`s Web site rarely range beyond the Shanghai city limits. In the absence of modern payment and delivery systems, buyers insist on inspecting the merchandise in person. Sellers get paid in cash. They meet face to face--under the giant video screen in People`s Square, or outside the front gate of Fudan University.

But by many measures, Eachnet seems to be off to a roaring start.

An investment consortium led by J.H. Whitney & Co. has put up $6.5 million to support the venture. And Shao expects little difficulty raising a second round of $20 million in venture funding before taking the firm public later this year.

Since it launched last September, the site has quickly eclipsed Beijing`s Yabuy.com and crosstown rival CitiClub.com as China`s premier address for online auctions. On an average day, Eachnet handles about 800 transactions, with a total value of $100,000. It boasts 240,000 regular users and claims traffic is now doubling every month.

The site has turned a few big-ticket items, including a Jeep Cherokee in Beijing last month and a house in Shanghai that went for about $45,000. But most listings are small--appliances, key chains, compact discs, cell phones, partially used telephone cards--and fetch more modest sums.

To promote brand loyalty and make transactions easier, Eachnet has opened a network of customer service booths at high-traffic spots around the city. One is a cluster of card tables wedged next to a large electronics retailer inside a bustling Shanghai shopping mall. A recent visit makes clear the site`s main attraction is more social than commercial.

"It`s a nice way to meet new friends," says 23-year-old bank clerk Guo Feng, grinning shyly as Eachnet staffers train the digital camera on his offering, a tiny bottle of Giorgio Armani perfume (asking price: $8).

Eachnet welcomes patrons such as Guo as eagerly as if they had come to auction the Hope diamond. Fully a third of company`s 90 employees work in customer service, manning the booths and a round-the-clock telephone help-line. Shao and his partner, former Harvard Business School classmate and fellow Shanghai native Haiyin Tan, run weekly focus groups to get direct feedback from site users.

The idea, says Shao, is to "use the eBay model to attract a solid base of loyal consumers and Internet users quickly."

On a recent Saturday afternoon, several dozen users, most of them in their 20s, crowded into a makeshift space not much larger than your average lemonade stand. They come to buy and sell, to have Eachnet staffers help them list their items on the site--or just to see what all the fuss is about.

Wei Junhao, 23, staggers in with a large amplifier he bought a month ago and now wants to resell. "Five hundred yuan [about $70]--very cheap," he says, as Eachnet employees snaps the item`s photo with a digital camera.

Cai Ling, a 24-year-old software engineer, arrives for his appointment with 20-year-old Ding Yuliang to sell his Sony Discman for 600 yuan. Kang Jian-hua, a 22-year-old clerk at Shanghai Airlines, wants to unload a bottle of Christian Dior`s "Hypnotic Poison" and a Prada bag full of partially used cosmetics.

"I don`t like Lancome skin cream," she says. "Estee Lauder is much better."

Eachnet does a fine job of helping users figure out who`s willing to bid the highest for what they`re selling. But closing deals--and, more important, figuring out a reliable method of collecting revenue from those deals--is an entirely different proposition.

Its U.S. prototype, eBay, raked in almost $400 million last year by charging users as much $2 for each item listed and as much as 5 percent of the value of every sale.

But that model would be a non-starter in China. So for now, Shao and his partners are concentrating on building a base of satisfied users and eking out modest revenue from on-site ads. "We try to take a practical approach," Shao says. "We say, `Let`s make what works in China work And build on that, rather than trying to force things from the West onto an economy where they won`t succeed.` "

Brian Doyle of J.H. Whitney, Shao`s main financial backer, said: "We`re operating on the assumption that these problems are going to get fixed in a two- or three-year time frame. The companies that get out there and establish first-mover advantage now are sure to make money later."

Nonsense, sniffs James Liang, a Shanghai-based consultant for Oracle. What companies such as Eachnet are attempting, he says, "isn`t business, it`s busy work."

Shao knows Eachnet will have to evolve into something more than just a social club to generate income from his growing customer base. He plans to start charging users soon for some basic services--posting auction notices in bold type, for example, or helping to arrange pickup and delivery of merchandise.

But he acknowledges there`s little hope of taking a cut of sales until the Chinese financial system develops more efficient alternatives to settling transactions in cash. Debit cards, now common in China`s major cities, may offer the quickest solution to that problem.

Several U.S. and Hong Kong-based firms are offering easy-to-install payment systems that would allow China`s backward banks to settle online transactions instantly using debit-card numbers. Cody Cain, vice president at First Ecom, a Hong Kong company specializing in e-payment, says an individual bank could have his company`s system up and running in as little as two weeks.

But Cain says it could be several years before such systems are widely used in China, partly because First Ecom and its competitors are focused on other developing markets where the payoffs are more immediate.

"The fact of that matter is that there aren`t a lot of consumers with access to a computer in China now, so you`re really limited to the market you can target. And even if you reach them, incomes are low, so good luck getting customers to pay for very much. It`s sexy to say you`re doing something with China, but the truth is there are much better opportunities for e-commerce elsewhere at the moment--in Taiwan, in Korea, even the Philippines."

In the meantime, Eachnet is exploring options that go beyond online auctions, such as acting as marketing intermediary for Western manufacturers trying to reach Chinese consumers. A number of large foreign companies, including Motorola, Apple Computer and Siemens, already offer products through Eachnet`s site.

Detractors say that in China`s backward economy, Shao has little hope of realizing his goal of making Eachnet profitable within the next three years. But Shao likes his odds--and he probably knows a thing or two about how to calculate risks. While a high school student in Shanghai, Shao was China`s national math champion--twice. He is the first mainlander to receive a full scholarship from Harvard.

Shao decided to return to his hometown to take a chance on an online auction site while doing some consulting work for the Singaporean government in his final semester at Harvard Business School. He and a group of colleagues were asked to study which e-commerce business models in use in the United States and Europe would work best in Asia. The answer, he quickly decided, was hardly any of them.

But after a bit more thought, he came around to the view that a version of eBay might work--if it could be implemented with a local focus. So in April, he turned down the chance to return to the Boston Consulting Group. Weeks later he booked his ticket back to Shanghai and used the U.S. version of eBay to auction off the contents of his Boston apartment.

While Shao wonders whether he made the right business move, satisfied customer Gao and her cat, at least, are thankful Eachnet exists. She recently rode four hours round trip by bus to Baoshang to pick up Bon-Bon`s blue-eyed boyfriend, Dan-Dan.

She managed to close the deal without offering the highest bid. Instead, she wrote an impassioned letter to his owner, a young doctor, explaining in detail why she could offer the most suitable home. "I told [the doctor] about Bon-Bon. He told me about his cat`s characters and shortcomings," Gao says. "We talked like two parents whose children were going to get married."


© Copyright 2000 The Washington Post Company

[rocketball]

An diesem Bericht kann man gut erkennen, wie gefestigt FECC im asiatischen Raum schon ist und das Firmen wie eBay FECC bereits kennen.

So soll es weiter gehen.

[Dollarnick]

Hier ein Beitrag von SPAZY, der zu diesem Thema paßt:

von SPAZY, 20.03.00 07:39:34
betrifft Aktie: FIRST ECOM.COMDL-,01 656138
guten morgen
ich habe mir den DER AKTIONÄR Nr. 22 / 21.Oktober 1999 Seite 25 nochmal durchgelesen

FECC ist eine "Internet-Creditcard-Clearing-Firma"

Mit der AAA-Bank(Bank of Bermuda) ist eine Bank gewonnen worden, die das Clering in einer steuerfreien Zone übernimmt.
Marktpotential für den asiatischen e-Commerce(110 Milliarden Dollar)
Hier sehe ich das riesige Potential von FECC

FECC`s strategische Kunden

Intershop (Deutschland)
TopSoft(Hongkong)
Microsoft(in Verhandlung)

FECC konnte weiterhin das JETCO-Konsortium mit über 52 Banken überzeugen!

Neben Dell Comuter
Federal Express
Star TV (300 Millionen Kunden, die in Zukunft über das Kabelfernsehen im Internet einkaufen können!)( und das Clearing über
FECC übernehmen lassen)

Die Citibank ist seit längerem Partner von FECC


Fazit

FECC entwickelt sich zum CLEARINGCARD-Monopolisten für den e-Commerce in Asien .

[rocketball]

Firstecom soll in Verhandlung stehen mit einem online-Auktionshaus.
Soviele gibt es von denen auch nicht.

Sollte diese Nachricht herauskommen,spricht das wiederrum nur für FECC und ihrem Produkt.

FECC hat schon lange nichts mehr an der OTC zu suchen und gehört für mich seit Kurzem schon länger an die Nasdaq.

Im RangingBull wird geschrieben, daß das Listing am 1.Mai erfolgen wird. Eine lange Zeit.

[Eurotop]

Kooperiert Fecc nicht mit China.con zusammen?

Dann wäre dieser Bericht nicht unbedeutend.

ONLINE ASIA
BY BRUCE EINHORN MARCH 27, 2000



Can Eachnet Become an eBay in China`s Image?
It isn`t easy being a Net auctioneer in a country where few people have computers or credit cards, and the law is ambiguou

A year ago, Shao Yibo, a Chinese entrepreneur fresh out of Harvard Business School, decided to set up an eBay-style online-auction site. Shao was interested in starting an Internet company last April, but he quickly ruled out setting up a portal, since so many companies were already trying to make that business work. By contrast, the field seemed wide open for Net auctions in China. "I thought eBay would work," he recalls, "and nobody was doing it."

Today, online auctions have become one of the hottest sectors in China`s Internet industry. Shao`s company, the Shanghai-based Eachnet, is one of the biggest. Others have such names as Clubciti, Coolbid, and Yabai. Big Chinese portals like Netease are now making a run at auctions, too. Even eBay is positioning itself for the Chinese market, forming partnerships with companies like Hong Kong-based Chinadotcom.

But for all the buzz, big questions remain about whether online auctions can work in China. Companies face challenges that rarely trouble eBay in the U.S. Few Chinese have credit cards, making online transactions extremely difficult. Moreover, China has a creaky transportation network, so even if companies manage to make sales over the Net, they still have trouble ensuring that buyers can get the goods. And many Chinese simply don`t trust doing business online, especially when dealing with another individual instead of a company.

FROZEN OFFERINGS. Beijing certainly hasn`t made it any easier. The government has put up several obstacles to China`s fledgling online-auction houses. All Chinese companies need to get business licenses, but Shao says that it`s not clear what sort of license an online auctioneer needs. That sort of legal uncertainty may not stop companies from doing business, but it can complicate their efforts to raise capital by going public.

Since the start of the year, Beijing`s bureaucracy has been stonewalling efforts by private-sector portals like Sohu.com, Sina.com, and Netease.com that want to have initial public offerings on Nasdaq or Hong Kong`s new second board, the Growth Enterprise Market (GEM). Until those portals go to market, the next generation of Chinese Internet companies -- which includes the auction sites -- are frozen, waiting to see what happens.

Like any good entrepreneur, Shao, 26, figures he`ll find answers to most of the problems. Yes, China`s vast size and backward infrastructure make the business difficult. But his short-term answer is to concentrate on a handful of China`s big cities, where most Internet users are. For instance, Eachnet allows a buyer in Shanghai to hook up with a seller in Shanghai. The two can then arrange to meet somewhere in the city and exchange goods for cash in person.

MAKE IT LOCAL. Cumbersome, to be sure. But for now, Shao says, it can work. And it`s not such a bad thing to stick to a few big cities. After all, Shanghai alone has 800,000 Internet users, about a tenth of the country`s total. Shao figures that the four big cities in China account for half of the country`s Internet users. "We make it local and almost bypass the problems," he says.

The numbers suggest that Chinese Internet users are intrigued by auctions. Eachnet has 260,000 registered users, who buy and sell about $2.5 million worth of goods each month in 100 different categories of products. Shao says the site records 500,000 daily page views, but since China has no monitoring services, there`s no way to have independent confirmation of these numbers. Looking more long-term, Shao recently formed a partnership with Sina, which is one of China`s most popular portals. That should help win over users in other parts of the country, when it comes time to expand beyond a few major cities.

In the meantime, Shao has accomplished one thing since launching Eachnet six months ago: He has won friends in the Shanghai Internet community. That`s no small feat, given the kind of rumor-mongering that characterizes the local Net scene, dominated by a small group of intensely competitive twentysomethings. Shao is a "fantastic young man," says Bo Feng, a venture capitalist with Chengwei Ventures who works with U.S. firm Robertson Stevens. "Even though everyone has questions about this space, if there is anybody who is able to take advantage of the market, [Shao] is the one."

"NO WAY IN HELL." The question remains, of course, whether even Shao can make it work. eBay is looking at the Chinese market but so far is proceeding very cautiously, with a collection of chinoiserie on its online Chinatown location. "We have to be very careful," said Peter Yip, the CEO of Chinadotcom, shortly after announcing the portal`s involvement in a deal with eBay. While delivery in America isn`t problem, Yip notes, "Asia is more difficult."

Shao isn`t impressed. "There is no way in hell that anyone in China will be remotely interested" in eBay`s China offerings, he blusters. He`s more concerned about the regulatory climate. Are online auctions actually legal? "Everyone is taking a wait-and-see attitude. No one knows what the law will look like," he says.

So for now, Shao is hedging his bets -- and looking for loopholes. Truth be told, says Shao, he`s not running a true auction site anyway. "We are simply providing a place for people to exchange info on goods," he says. "It`s quite different than auctions." Besides, Shao says, Eachnet is moving to fixed-price retailing soon -- just in case the mandarins in Beijing find his explanation less than convincing.

Einhorn is Business Week`s Hong Kong-based Asian technology correspondent. His column appears every Monday on Business Week Online

EDITED BY PAUL JUDGE

[Consox]

Genau Eurotop, so ist es,

sieh mal da

Wednesday March 1, 6:30 am Eastern Time
Company Press Release
First Ecom.Com and inter-Merchant Offer State-of-the-Art Payment Processing Services to Asian Online Merchants and Buyers
Internet shopping storefront successfully completes integration with payment processing solution
HONG KONG--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 1, 2000-- First Ecom.com (OTC BB:FECC - news), a global provider of electronic payment processing, and inter-Merchant, the first Chinese and English language developer of multi-lingual e-commerce storefront solutions launched by the Web Connection, today announced the successful integration of inter-Merchant`s storefront solution software with First Ecom.com`s payment gateway. This combined solution allows online merchants and e-commerce companies to seamlessly deliver multi-lingual, e-commerce storefronts and payment processing services over the Internet in multiple currencies

.
.

About Web Connection
Established in 1995, the Web Connection, a chinadotcom corporation (Nasdaq:CHINA - news) subsidiary, offers strategic Internet solutions for major corporations and dot-com startups that recognize the power of the Internet as a business platform and customer relationship management channel. The Web Connection brings together a rare blend of core competencies - digital strategy, technology integration, creative design and online marketing - which represents the core ingredients of a winning e-business solution. Major clients include HSBC, Hong Kong Tourist Association, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, KLM, IBM, General Motors, Samsung and Cisco Systems. The Web Connection has over 400 staff across Asia with offices in Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Japan, Taiwan and Korea. The Web Connection`s web site can be found at www.twc-asia.com

und hier

First Ecom.com liefert weltweit elektronische Zahlungsverkehrslösungen für den gesamten ecommerce-Bereich und stellt mit seiner eigenen Gateway-Lösung den Zahlungsverkehr zwischen Händler, Kunde, Bank und Kreditkartengesellschaft sicher. VMR hat sich im Rahmen eines Private Placements an der Gesellschaft beteiligt, deren Aktien bereits an der NASDAQ gehandelt werden. Aufgrund der aktuellen Börsenbewertung bestehen auch hier bereits stille Reserven. Weitere namenhafte Investoren sind u.a. Jakob Rothschild, China.com und Tokio Marine & Fire Insurance, die größte Versicherung Japans.

und dabei bleibt es sicher nicht!

Consox