eCommerce and Jamaica – are we there yet?

Jamaica- It’s just that there has been so much hype and talk plus news of a litany of aborted and on hold projects; with the few success stories linked to Jamaicans living overseas or a few others with strong links to the local Financial sector.

Back in 2001, Minister in charge of Technology Philip Paulwell, promised the coming of the electronic transactions act that will herald Jamaica being the ecommerce hub of the region. That eTransactions Act finally came in early 2007. It’s October 2007 and a new government and a new Minister Clive Mullings are in charge of educating and exciting the Jamaicans about the lifestyle and business opportunities that the law now supports. This act is of course late, especially since Bermuda managed to pass from 1999.

So where are we now?

Banking: Are Jamaican banks prepared or preparing to invest in systems that will eliminate their primary worry of fraud. What changes will have to be made to the Banking Act to facilitate ecommerce? Scotiabank and NCB have credit card facilitation services now, but the cost of using it is prohibitive to startups and many use the US based Paypal.com to handle credit card transactions instead.

Shipping: Why does it cost so much to ship from Jamaica? How practical will it be to ship clothing, arts and crafts, and gourmet foods? Very. For example, there is J$600 fee plus $5 stamp for each export entry filed for customs. An export entry is required per customer receiving an exported item from Jamaica. Therefore, if someone were to order an item from a Jamaican website costing a total of US$20 ($1,400), the site owners would have to pay J$605. This figure cannot be passed on to the consumer and therefore makes doing the fulfillment aspect of an e-commerce business with the goods leaving directly from Jamaica a financial unfeasible.

Technical: What expertise exists in Jamaica to assist local companies in building ecommerce systems? There are now about 3 web development firms who have experience in setting up ecommerce focused websites –from an information architecture, content that drive sales, programming that integrates payment systems.

Internet Access: Due to increased competition in the ISP market and with Wireless Internet Access emerging – the cost of Internet access has dropped a lot since 2001, but the internet penetration is still below 40% with the cost of the main access device- the PC still out of the reach of some.

Where We Want to Be.

When Bermuda enacted their Electronics Transactions Act in 1999, they created a Ministry of Telecommunications and eCommerce headed by a woman, Renee Webb, who was the first Minister worldwide to have E-Commerce as a Ministerial title and a department added to it.

Add to that Bermuda is the only offshore jurisdiction that has local partners working with First Data Corporation, the largest third-party credit card processor in the world. Three quarters of U.S. Fortune 100 companies have a presence in Bermuda. Further, they seem to have all angles covered from their infrastructure in terms of the telecoms, ISPs, Network and Security People, to the application side of things by securing Payment Gateways, Web development and ASP support. And to round off that picture, they’ve sewn up investors and insurers, all making ecommerce in Bermuda working pretty smoothly. The country has over a hundred ebusinesses operating from its shores.