The idea, like so many cooked up in cyberspace, seems at once off-the-wall and inspired. Imagine a service where people all over the world can send letters through the Internet to people who are not on-line. Confused? Don't be. Letterpost.com, is coming soon to a mail box near you.
The system, which marries the latest in communications technology with snail mail, is another example of electronic commerce (e-commerce) and a young Irish company, Volta Digital Media is responsible for the promotion of the service as well as the aesthetics of the site.
It costs 99 cents (around 40p) to send a letter or greeting card to anywhere in the world.
"The sender buys stamp tokens on-line, writes their letter and the message is transmitted to the Letterpost mail centre nearest the destination. Then the letter is printed out, put in an envelope, stamped and sent through the normal post," says Volta's managing director, Michael Cunningham. There are currently centres in San Francisco and India and a Dublin office is opening soon. The system shaves several days, in some cases more than a week, off the normal time it takes for letters to arrive. If it proves popular it could make the US-based academic who came up with the concept a lot of money and be yet another feather in Volta's cap. Put simply, e-commerce is anything to do with selling goods or services on line. At home, most buyers content themselves with purchasing CDs, books or even aeroplane tickets from the growing number of virtual stores.
In the US, where the Internet retail market is currently worth $5.8 billion, consumers have no qualms purchasing every product imaginable, even attending an online auction to bid for a house, while sitting in front of a monitor.
Purchases are made using the buyer's credit card number, which is one reason many Irish companies are unwilling to invest in a website which enables them to sell their wares. At consultancy company Amarach, Gerard O'Neill points out that only one in five Irish adults own a credit card, compared to the vast majority in the US and just under half of all adults in the UK. This, and the fact that the banks have been slow to implement the technology that would make it easier to conduct financial transactions over the net, means achieving the Government's stated wish that the State becomes a hub of e-commerce could be something of an uphill battle.
"We are a bit behind the posse on the whole thing . .. we estimate that we are between 12 and 18 months behind Europe in terms of progress," said Gerard Mr O'Neill. Perhaps more worrying is what he calls the "polarisation between the small number of companies who are incredibly sophisticated in terms of their plans and approach and the vast majority who are not taking it very seriously at all".
And why should they? Well, according to the report to the Government's advisory committee on telecommunications, e-commerce provides a number of opportunities for Irish businesses. The main one is a whole new market that can open up to them at the click of a button. Dell, which currently sells $6 million worth of its product online daily, has found that 80 per cent of consumers and 50 per cent of small businesses were first time customers and that half of the orders are placed out of business hours between 5 p.m. and 7 a.m.. Another reason for the slow take up - there are only around 50 Irish e-commerce enabled websites currently on-line - is the relatively low number of Internet users here. With improvements in the technological infrastructure, and a flat rate for Internet use being urged by the Government, this is set to change. Industry experts predict that the 400,000 currently on line will grow to one million in 2004, a comparable level to where the US is at the moment. The low penetration level can be seen as somewhat responsible for the wait-and-see attitude many companies are adapting. Supermarket chain Tesco, while running successful on-line shopping and banking in 12 of its UK stores, says the demand is not yet in evidence to justify similar developments here.
"We haven't been approached about it by customers as yet, but we are not ruling it out and would certainly examine it if shopping on-line were something our customers wanted," a spokeswoman said.
At the Volta head office in Dublin, FAS trainee Rob Madill is sourcing material for another Volta project, "a subversive entertainment site". The company's main work, however, is as web consultants, advising Irish businesses how to make the most of the electronic medium, designing and building websites, creating Internet strategies for those new to cyberspace. "Strategies that make money," the old saying goes, "but above all make sense." The company was formed last December by Paul Clerkin, Eamonn Conlon, Michael Cunningham and Denise O'Kelly, four people who between them have hands-on professional experience of all aspects of the Internet.
At the moment, according to Michael Cunningham, most of the on-line activity is in business-to-business transactions which can represent huge savings of time and resources compared to traditional business methods. The company is kept busy enhancing the business profile of Irish organisations by developing "genuinely interactive, knowledge rich web-sites that are properly promoted and maintained".
"It's about taking a company and putting them in a position to turn around and face a new audience," explained Denise O'Kelly. "Sometimes they see it as the last thing on the list, just another issue to contend with like the euro or Y2K. E-commerce is about opportunities and threats. The opportunity is the many ways it can enhance a business and the threat is not getting involved and being left behind by your competitors," she said.
Business 2000 returns on May 10th with an examination of privatisation
