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E-mall 'TrolleyMania.Com' launched
TrolleyMania.com - a new online shopping mall - was launched in an event aimed at all local businesses which want to venture into the world of e-commerce and start selling their products online.
IT minister Austin Gatt inaugurated the e-mall portal, a project that came to fruition after a public-private partnership between Government and Alert Communications to promote e-commerce.
Minister Gatt stressed that such a project should have been an initiative driven by the private sector and not by Government. Over the years and through multiple initiatives, Government has encouraged citizens to get connected to the internet and statistics shows that 69% of Maltese use the internet on a regular basis with 99% of them using it from the comfort of their home.
Even though 73% from the local online population has recently made an online purchase, only 7% of purchases were made through local online retailers.
“We want to change this scenario by supporting local businesses of all types and sizes in their online endeavours and this is precisely what we’re doing today” Austin Gatt said.
MITA’s Chairman Claudio Grech said that TrolleyMania.com aims at increasing the percentage of online purchases done through local retailers. There are currently 37 eShops of all sizes which are already fully operational on TrolleyMania with another 8 shops in the process of setting up. “The response from the local business community was very positive.
The process of setting up an eShop on Trolleymania is done completely online. Merchants can register, choose a design template, add products in the product catalogue, select preferred methods for receiving payment (cash on delivery, debit and credit card payments, or both) and choose delivery options (own delivery or MaltaPost delivery).
Currently, TrolleyMania.com customers can browse through 4000 different products divided into 25 product categories. Besides the ability of viewing each product, customers can also compare similar items (from different retailers) with each other to help them decide in which product is best for their needs.
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A money laundering operation by any other name - and we are suppose to applaud.
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Claudio Grech forgot to say that Austin Gatt's ministry is giving 300,000 euroes of tax payers money to Alert - to do the same project that was already funded with EU funds - namely MaltaExpo. He also forgot to point out that the merchants already using this website are carried over from MaltaExpo.
Maybe someone can also explain how the government is giving money to a company to complete against the many other operators in Malta already offer the same or better product? Why is tax payers money being used to damage private businesses and promote the interest of one company?
The tender was also awarded to Alert even though it was 5 times higher then similar tenders. Also - none of the 300,000 euroes will go to the retailers - then will go to Alert and who ever else they front on this project.
Can Claudio Grech and his buddy Austin Gatt justify this monkey business?
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The site has quite a lot of bugs. Seems like it wasn't tested properly with Firefox, for instance. It was also very slow, though that might be caused by a surge of people going to check it out at the launch, and will probably level out.
Reminds me of the Titanic's maiden voyage :)
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