Shopify continues to expand beyond its core e-commerce platform with a new product called Shopify Email.

Shopify’s  chief product officer Craig Miller and director of product for  marketing technology Michael Perry gave me a quick demo of the product  yesterday; Miller argued that they’ve created “the first email product  designed for e-commerce.”

For more information please visit: https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/05/shopify-email/

Hong Kong International Airport’s one-stop online-shopping platform  HKairportshop.com is making orders purchased via the platform ready for  pickup at the airport 90 minutes after the purchase is made – including  duty-free hard liquor.

For more information please visit: https://insideretail.hk/2019/05/27/hkairportshop-com-offers-worlds-fastest-airport-pickup-for-online-purchase/

U.S. restrictions on China’s telecom giant Huawei threatens to snuff out a nascent recovery in semiconductor demand, a key driver of economic growth in technology powerhouses including South Korea and Taiwan.

China dominates purchases from Asian semiconductor exporters and bought 51% of their exports in 2017, according to analysis by Citigroup Inc. economists Jin-Wook Kim and Johanna Chua.

China and Hong Kong took 69% of South Korea’s chip shipments, 56% of Taiwan’s, 51% of Vietnam’s, 43% of Japan’s, and 39% of Malaysia’s exports, according to the Citi note. Citi’s Asia Semiconductor Leading Index "significantly stalled" in May having shown signs of recovery since January and could worsen from here if trade tensions deepen.

For more information please visit: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-21/huawei-ban-clouds-outlook-for-world-s-growth-engine?srnd=premium-asia

Two years ago, Apple changed the way its app store ratings worked by allowing developers to decidewhether or not their ratings would be reset with their latest app update — a feature that Apple suggestsshould be used sparingly. Today, Google announced it’s making a change to how its Play Store app ratings work, too. But instead of giving developers the choice of when ratings will reset, it will begin to weight app ratings to favor those from more recent releases.

“You told us you wanted a rating based on what your app is today, not what it was years ago, and we agree,” said Milena Nikolic, an engineering director leading Google Play Console, who detailed the changes at the Google I/O Developer conference today.

She explained that, soon, the average rating calculation for apps will be updated for all Android apps on Google Play. Instead of a lifetime cumulative value, the app’s average rating will be recalculated to “give more weight” to the most recent users’ ratings.

For more information please visit: https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/08/google-play-is-changing-how-app-ratings-work/?utm_medium=TCnewsletter&tpcc=TCdailynewsletter

For more information please visit: https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2019/04/16/why-china-ecommerce-is-going-crazy-for-wechat-mini%E2%80%91programs/

As the leading retail exhibition in Asia, RACE is proudly recognised as the MUST-JOIN event among the industry’s most influential retailers and buyers. RACE features three focus areas: Retail Technology, Retail Design & In-Store Marketing and Internet Retailing, as well as various onsite educational seminars and networking events.

For more information please visit: https://www.retailasiaexpo.com/

t has been more than two years since Tencent Holdings introduced its  “mini-program” feature, essentially a lightweight app that operates  within the WeChat ecosystem. Despite a rocky start, WeChat mini-programs  completely took off in 2018, with thousands of brands and retailers  jumping on the bandwagon to explore business opportunities.

A new  survey co-authored by Chinese research agency Kueclub (酷鹅研究院) and  Tencent Research & Development offers insights into how Chinese  consumers use WeChat mini-programs and what their behavior can mean to  brands and retailers.

Published at the beginning of this year,  they surveyed 8,000 WeChat mini-program users to understand their daily  habits and preferences. Nearly 70 percent of users are optimistic about  the future development of mini-programs, and over 40 percent think  mini-programs can replace stand-alone apps someday.

For more information please visit: https://jingdaily.com/wechat-mini-program-2019/

Kinofy claims to combine e-commerce management, marketing automation, order management, inventory management, logistics management, delivery management and more with the Kinofy cloud-based platform that gives merchants a single view of their business, anytime, anywhere

For more information please visit: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/332355

Puzzle is a WeChat cross border solutions provider, from basic eStore features to Sales Driven solutions. We developed this natively on WeChat for seamless cross-border payment within the WeChat eco-system.

WeChat mini-programs are "sub-applications" within the WeChat ecosystem. Mini-programs provide advanced features to users for more e-commerce interaction.

Challenges faced by e-tailers

• Lack of sales and marketing channels to access the market in China
• E-commerce platforms in China charge a huge fee on top of your logistics, marketing and operation cost
• Manage exchanges between RMB and HKD
• Chinese customers were not able to pay you, because cross border payment was not available.
• Web-based solutions offered in China were badly build
• Lack of transparency on architecture setup
• Lack of access to your own data

How Puzzle could help to put everything together

• Puzzle is a native build WeChat Mini Program
• Able to handle cross-border payment between China and Hong Kong in RMB/HKD exchanges
• Puzzle is a WestRoadSouth product, meaning you will get full dedicated tech team support. It is a clear differentiator from those out of the box product on the market
• Features are customizable upon request
• Saas with a dedicated server. It is not under a platform, that gives the tech team to have full control over the application, server and data management
• With the data readily available. Companies are able to plan ahead on the roadmap to scale and serve more customers
• Every brand should have their own store as a core channel

Come say hello at WestRoadSouth

Mailchimp today announced that the Mailchimp app, which let its users use their Shopify data to create targeted email campaigns, for example, is no longer available in the Shopify marketplace. The reason for this, Shopify itself says, is that it “had growing concerns about Mailchimp’s app because of the poor merchant experience and their refusal to respect our Partner Program Agreement.”

Clearly, this isn’t the most amicable divorce.

Another year is on its way out, offering entrepreneurs an opportunity to reflect on the past year, with all its peaks and valleys, and plan for the upcoming year with those lessons in mind. Of course, business operations don't happen in a vacuum, and business trends are always changing. Whether the changes are in technology, marketing, finance or public policy, entrepreneurs need to be aware of all these external factors in addition to their internal operations.

To that end, Business News Daily compiled a list of business trends and predictions to help businesses start 2019 successfully. These 20 key ideas will likely be important focuses moving forward and should be on every small business owner's radar.

Cloud Expo Asia Hong Kong, the North Asia's biggest and best attended technology event, returns on 22-23 May 2019 at HKCEC.

Cloud Expo Asia brings together the world's leading minds, from industry leaders & practitioners to share their extensive wisdom and discuss the latest topics and concerns surrounding the digital transformation plans.

Network with your peers. Access a wealth of knowledge and advice including emerging trends, tech deep dives, lessons learned and market forecasts.

For more information please visit: https://www.cloudexpoasiahk.com/welcome

An wonder event was held on the 9th Mar 2019 with colaboration with IxDC, Phase X and Kafnu. Over the course of the seminar, WestRoadSouth went over the the below topics in details. Thank you everyone for joining us on a Saturday. If you like what we are doing, let us know more what you would like to hear more in the future by filling out this form.

Our next up coming event will be held in May 2019. Stay tune! Follow us on Facebook.

Topic breakdown

• What is omni channel
• More on Multi Channel Selling
• How to run a successful online business
• The new business units
• Challenges for traditional companies
• WestRoadSouth Services
• Current trends in eCommerce
• Cloud computingRetail 4.0
• Agency and Subscription business model
• AnalyticsChina new eCom law
• WeChat Mini Program
• Brief Introduction
• Cross Border Payment

Feel free to contact us by email at hello@westroadsouth.com before 8th March for a free entrance.

March 9th, 2019 (Saturday)
2:00pm – 4:30pm

以科技為企業創新是現時營商必須考慮的重要一環。講座深入淺出解析科技如何協助營商發展, 減省成本及擴闊市場, 只需善用周未兩個半小時便可極速了解創科營商方法及建立創科營商脈絡。此講座以廣東話為主。

Technology and digital transformation are inevitable in today's business innovation. This seminar will explain about how to implement omni-channel communications strategy via intelligent technology. The event will be conducted in Cantonese.

IxDC
中國最大用戶體驗研究組織

IxDC國際用户體驗委員會是中國最大的UX研究組織， 成立經已十年， 每年的用户體驗大會參與人數超過二千人， 成員包括騰訊，百度及阿里巴巴等創科巨企。www.ixdc.org

Phase X
為企業管理層提供創新及具前瞻性的意見

PhaseX是一間C level級別的創新顧問機構，為企業管理層作出精準及創新的營商科案， 團隊來自不同的科創領域如IoT，Platform Thinking，Big Data及AI等...利用顧問團的專業智識及經驗協助企業作出價值轉形(Value Transformation)，把企業本身的價值結合創科視野作出最易執行及高市場增長的企業轉型。

WestRoadSouth Limited
為您提供全方位電子商務解決方案

WRS成立於2015年，從數碼營銷發展成為提供全方位電子商務解決方案的公司。我們的服務範圍包括數碼營銷，電子商務解決方案，營運管理和應用程序開發等。為配合市場雲端服務的需求，在2018年，我們引入DevSecOps服務。務求於雲端服務的架構上，為客戶提位專業及安全的電子商務方案。我們希望為市場帶來高標準的技術實施和管理，以科技為客戶提升效率並創造更大商機。www.WestRoadSouth.com

This time we will cover a high-level view of what to expect when receiving a website or mobile quotation from your agency. Digitization is making it inevitable for managers to scale up their tech knowledge and digital expertise. This time, we will focus more on the paper-work side of things, the quotation.

A typical website or mobile quotation would differ from one page to one hundred pages. Pretty much the quality of a programmer between worst and the best in the market. Only this time, more pages do not mean it is the best. I hope this will help, for someone who does not have the experience of dealing with a vendor. So let's get to it.

Summary

This is a brief introduction to the proposal. It clearly states the purpose of the project. For example, you might have a project for creating an eCommerce website for B2B or B2C. What is the website or mobile application trying to accomplish at the end?

Methodology

The document should clearly state the vendor is using a which methodology on development. To name a few, lean development, waterfall, agile, scrum. One should google them up to get a basic understanding of their pros and cons.

Wikipedia - software development process

User Story

A dictate the customer journey within your application. It illustrates how a typical user will enter into the UI / UX flow, what features and options are made available to perform a certain function with the application. It could be as simple as writing out the story in text form to a more visual wide frame and layout demonstration. Do not be surprised if your vendor does not present you with the full deck. It takes efforts to work the wireframe and layout with the customer.

Features

The vendor should clearly list out the features that will be available for the application. Usually, parts of it are illustrated inside the user story. However, you should receive a full feature list for your frontend and backend. Pay attention to every detail of this before you go ahead with it. What is not mentioned on the feature list, work of scope or specification is usually out of scope. Meaning extra charges, if you want it before you enter into a contract.

Price

Generally speaking, it will be pricey if you are looking for a custom build service. For a standard feature, there are numerous SaaS providers out in the cloud. Make sure you get a few quotes from different grades of companies. I would advise not to choose the cheapest. Coding is craftsmanship. A good developer or a good team deserves the premium. It will cost you much less then the figures you calculated on paper.

"The difference between the average software developer and the best is 50:1;"
Steve Jobs - The Lost Interview

Payment Terms

Payment terms are usually layout as per milestone achieved. Consisting of
1- initial deposit for confirmation (~40% of the total project cost)
2- upon UAT for the release of testing (~30% of the total project cost)
3- final payment for completion (~30% of the total project cost)

Again, you are free to negotiate these terms with your vendor. For ad hoc tasks, it is usually charged per man-day basis. for example, a certain task will require 1 man day to complete. They will specify the man-day cost e.g. HKD4,000 per man-day for 3 man-days.

For example

HKD4,000 x 3 MAN DAYS = HKD12,000.00

Source Code

There should be an ownership clause for the source code developed for your project. Under normal business dealing, I would advise the customer to ensure the entitlement of their project. The customer should have full ownership of the source code.

Maintenance

Even if you have the ownership of the source code. It would be wise to have a maintenance plan with the vendor. The vendor is the original source of the program, they know better than anyone else how it operates. It is also true, very often, the MVP players left the agency. And no one knows what's going on afterward.

Anyhow, do reserve some time for your own development team to go through the code, study them before you cut out your agency.