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The Little Guy
E-commerce is exciting and beneficial on many fronts – its benevolent affect on the economy is attested to throughout the global community. Two interesting examples are China and Kenya, of all places.
Before mobile phones became the byword of Kenya’s ICT success and fiber optic technology was unheard of there, Kenyans waited for the day when e-commerce would become a reality. Frustrated e-entrepreneurs lamented over the lack of appropriate legal framework and innovations to usher the next big thing into the virtual economy.
Businesses sadly missed out on billions of shillings worth of deals in the global market, simply because of the inability to accept online payments. Picture that! We in the west should not take our online market opportunities for granted – we have been a bit spoiled.
On Tuesday a landmark development saw I&M Bank and Visa Card strike a deal that allows consumers in Kenya to buy goods from the internet in local currency using credit and debit cards. Cool!
This makes Kenya the first nation in the East African region to be pushed into the center of the world of electronic commerce. The giant leap will offer potential Kenyan e-merchants, like airline, tour and travel companies, hotels and utility service providers the opportunity to expand their sales.
E-commerce can effectively relieve recipients of online payment, the trouble of engaging offshore electronic gateways to receive money, the use of which has remained a costly affair for both businesses and individuals.
The foundations of Kenya’s e-commerce are founded in the Kenya Communications Act, passed in their Parliament more than a year ago.
The Act allows businesses to participate in e-commerce, execute electronic signatures, and recognizes the use of electronic communication as an official means of conveyance between companies and their shareholders.

The Big Guy
China has been in the game much longer than Kenya, and despite the brewhaha surrounding Google, their e-commerce continues to rock at a frenetic speed.
The China Internet Network Information Center said the number of internet users jumped 28.9% in 2009 to 384 million. That is more than the entire population of the U.S.
Chinese consumers are migrating beyond some of the free services offered by portals like Sina.com, Sohu.com and Netease.com as they begin to do more and more of their shopping online.
China's online shopping sales rose to $36.6 billion last year and one of the reasons behind the growth was that retailers were able to help consumers feel more comfortable shopping online – a major hurdle for e-merchants everywhere.
Alipay is a Chinese shopping cart system which operates similarly to PayPal. The difference is that Alipay doesn't release payment until after the buyer actually receives the item.
Alipay has become China's biggest online payment company. They process more than 1 billion yuan ($146 million) in transactions every day. Alipay recently announced that they expect to surpass PayPal's transaction volume within two years. That's quite an accomplishment!
The benefit of Taobao, Alibaba's online retailer attributed to Alipay, is like that of eBay's success at the hands of PayPal. The difference is that Taobao relies more on advertising revenue, than transaction fees.
Also note, much of China's e-commerce growth is driven by younger buyers. China Market Research Group said that users in China between the ages of 13 and 28 spend 20 hours a week online on average. This is compared with the 12 hours a week spent online by youngsters in the United States.