Technology Releases - Saas

Netregistry, Australia’s leading domain name provider, has chosen the award-winning ePages ebusiness solution from eCorner as the platform for a range of hosted ecommerce offerings for its customers.

Netregistry CEO, Larry Bloch, said the new products, which have been selling since 19th January 2009, allow Netregistry to offer a tiered selection of hosted ecommerce applications to meet the needs of every business customer.

 “Our selection of ePages as the platform for our ecommerce offering means we can give our small business customers a choice of an entry level, professional or premium solution, depending on their needs and budget,” he said.

“ePages is highly sophisticated in terms of the functionality and security it provides, but so intuitive and easy to use that an absolute novice can very quickly become proficient.  As the leading provider of domain names in Australia and the third largest web hosting company, Netregistry has over 150,000 SMB customers, many of whom are yet to implement an ecommerce website, so these new offerings represent a major business opportunity.”

Netregistry went looking for new ecommerce platform to replace its previous xCart offering in mid-2008, choosing ePages for its breadth and depth of features, the flexibility and ease with which it could be tailored for different market segments, and the ability to offer it as a hosted model to minimise costs.

 “ePages is a solid performer that dominates the European market and is rapidly building market share here in Australia.  Our ability to host our ePages solutions and allow customers to pay a low monthly access fee makes these offerings more affordable for our customers,” said Mr Bloch.

“Another important factor in our selection was the commitment and expertise demonstrated by the local distributor, eCorner, which worked with us to implement ePages and will provide on-going technical support.  It took just six weeks to design and implement the systems with full back end integration, and the entire process was completely painless,” he said.

Netregistry now offers three ePages solutions under its StoreXpress brand, all hosted within the company’s Sydney data centre:

* an entry-level StoreXpress option capable of handling up to 100 products for just $59.95 per month;

* the more advanced StoreXpress Pro with seamless integration to eBay or Australia Post for $99.95 per month; and

* StoreXpress Premium, a multi-currency option capable of handling up to 5,000 products in 500 categories for $249.95 per month.

All options provide full ecommerce capability with a shopping cart and customisable design templates to make website creation a breeze.

“There’s been a very positive response to the new offerings with 11 companies signing up in the first week alone,” Mr Bloch said.  “As small businesses increasingly turn to the internet to access new customers at minimal cost, we are ideally positioned to take them from their initial foray online right through to a world-class ecommerce site with merchant facilities and payment gateway.”

eCorner Managing Director, John Debrincat, said the Netregistry agreement is important recognition of ePages’s superior functionality, flexibility and ease of implementation.

“When we first brought ePages to Australia 5 years ago, we knew it would take some time to become established in this market.  However, today we have several large corporations as customers in addition to the scores of small businesses that rely on this platform for their ecommerce operation. The vast majority of our customers are reporting growth in online sales despite the economic turmoil. This makes it an exciting time to be in ecommerce.

“We are excited to be partnering with a leading player like Netregistry and look forward to working with them to roll out the ePages solutions to their two sister companies, PlanetDomain and Hostess, later this year,” Mr Debrincat said.