iiNet offers SMBs online stores "within minutes"

Stuart Corner
Friday, 10 December 2010 14:37

Business IT - Technology

iiNet has introduced an online shopping cart for small businesses, claiming it enables them to set up an online sales presence in a matter of minutes.

According to iiNet Business general manager, Steve Harley, "Unlike other solutions, iiNet shopping cart integrates with all major Australian banks making payment processing simple. It also provides an automatic calculation of shipping costs by weight and destination through integration with Australia Post. Add to this PayPal and EBay functionality and small businesses are ready to unlock the full potential of online shopping for their customers."

The underlying technology comes from ePages, for which specialist Australian e-commerce provider eCorner, is the Australia & New Zealand master distributor. eCorner says the ePages offering has been fully localised for Australian services such as Australia Post, eWAY and TNSI payment gateways, Getprice shopping comparison and Temando shipping aggregator.

"As well as fully supporting international services like eBay and PayPal, ePages supports international sales and multiple languages, currencies and tax regions and is fully enabled for social media such as Facebook, Twitter, forums and blogs."

iiNet offers three versions: $39 per month for up to 100 products, $79 for 1000 and $149 for 5000. "With deals ranging from $39-$149 per month, the iiNet Shopping Cart provides credible competition to overseas-based services," eCorner said. "Importantly, as ePages is locally hosted by iiNet, it is far better positioned to give priority to local search results."

According to eCorner, ePages is used by some of Europe's largest and most successful service providers such as Strato (now Deutsche Telekom), British Telecom, French providers Amen and La Poste, and Orange.

It also underpins the Commonwealth Bank's eVolve iSHOP, which in June this year scored the Cannex Innovation Award of the Australian Canstar Cannex rating agency and the Interactive Media Award for Outstanding Achievement in eCommerce " of the Interactive Media Council, an international association of web developers and online marketing experts. The Comm Bank offering, however is limited to 1000 products.