(Nikkei BP Group)
(No.1 High-Tech News Site in Japanese)
|
|
| Orico Opts to Use SET Protocol for Internet Auctions
|
|
February 16, 1999 (TOKYO) -- Orient Corp., a Japanese credit card company
also known as Orico, said that from March 1 its Internet-based Auction
Market Japan (AMJ) will be made compatible with the Secure Electronic
Transaction (SET) specification.
|
The move will ensure the full protection of data when customers purchase
items through online transactions.
Auction Market Japan is a members-only online auction site that the company
runs.
At the same time, the company will establish another membership-based
site -- a virtual shopping mall called Click Market. The creation of
this site, which will be made available along with AMJ at the "Orico
Mall" site (http://www.oricomall.or.jp/),
signals that the company is taking serious steps to develop the market
for electronic commerce (EC).
The introduction of the SET specification is aimed at reassuring potential
users and current members who worry about the security of data related
to EC.
At auctions held through the AMJ site Feb. 3-Feb. 6, the offered items
included fashion and designer brand goods, sporting goods and foodstuffs,
in addition to the mainstream computer-related products.
To fully develop the potential of EC it is necessary to increase the
number of members subscribing to the services, according to Koji Oketani,
of the card planning department of Orico's Card Business Division.
With that in mind, and because the number of women Internet users is
growing, one of the ways the company intends to expand its customer
base is by offering more auctioned products targeted at women.
Up until recently, a vast majority of the members of Orico's service
have been men. Of a total of 9,200 members, women accounted for only
around 2 percent. But the latest set of auctions attracted an additional
700 new members, and of those 25 percent are women.
Click Market will mostly feature companies that also supply products
for sale via the auctions. When it starts, Click Market is likely to
comprise 50 to 60 stores. Oketani said that if members visit the auction
site regularly to participate in auctions, they will likely buy products
at the Click Market stores.
If the product lines at the Click Market prove to be attractive, combined
annual sales for the AMJ and Click Market sites could reach 600 million
yen (US$5.28 million).
To coincide with the opening of its new virtual mall, Orico also will
start offering a service targeted at other companies running EC sites.
It will enable credit card payment transactions for those other sites
to be made through Orico.
An EC site that signs up to use the new service will first need to be
connected to Orico's card payment system via a leased line. All handling
of customer credit card bills and processing of payments related to
goods bought at the site will be done automatically by Orico.
For users of this service, the initial registration fee is 200,000 yen
(US$1,760) and the monthly service charge is set at 100,000 yen. In
addition, a 15 yen (US$0.13) commission will be charged for each transaction
made using the service.
Orico also plans to start selling a software package to help people build
their own virtual shopping malls and auction sites.
(Nikkei
Multimedia)
<Visit News Center for more Asian news.>
|
|
|
