For struggling businesspersons like Steven Sears, a local fisherman and coconut oil producer, the Information Superhighway could mean the difference between entrepreneurial life and death.
Mr. Sears is a prime example of the position that many Bahamian business owners find themselves in; he believes that the local market may be exhausted for his goods and sees unlimited visits over the Internet, but he is hard-pressed for funds.
“My partners and I go out in the boat every two weeks and our catch is sometimes worth $5,000 to $10,000, but we can not sell them all locally because of the competition,” he said. “But if we had clients abroad, I think we would be further ahead in our business.”
E-commerce is an idea that is slowly catching on. A draft bill on regulating it is being circulated and legislation could come into force by the end of June.
While Mr. Sears sees a possible lifeline in the Internet, Jerome Ferguson, New Providence project manager for the Bahamas Development Bank, said the bank cannot facilitate funding an E-commerce venture under its current loan guaranteed system.
“E-commerce is not a central loan plan to the bank,” he said. “It is not the ideal project that we would fund.”
Some people believe that it’s a position that may be putting the proverbial nail in business coffins.
According to Lisa Wells, e-commerce facilitator and President of Bahamas B2B, a website that promotes online business, the Bahamas has lost millions of dollars as a result of not being a bigger part of the e-commerce world.
“I can name about a dozen companies which were very interested in operating businesses in the Bahamas and who have left resulting in a loss of tens of millions of dollars worth of business altogether and the people have lost their interest and moved to places like Antigua, Barbados, Bermuda and Ireland,” Mrs. Wells told the Bahama Journal.
Duke Wells, Lisa’s husband and business partner, added that there is virtually no e-commerce taking place within the Bahamas because of inadequate e-commerce infrastructure.
With the idea in mind, they said they approached the former chairman of Bahamas Agricultural and Industrial Cooperation David Thompson and volunteered to set up an e-commerce system for Bahamian merchants to sell their goods on line.
“We set up a complete website and prepared the infrastructure involving an outside credit card processing system, and a shipping processing system in the United States, but BAIC dropped the ball entirely,” he said. “They never contributed to anything and never approved any of the businesspersons.”
Manager for Business Advisory Services for BAIC Don Major told the Journal that there were no activities on the website.
Mr. Major said that there were some complaints about the website supplier (Bahamas B2B.com) and that the BAIC officials thought it would be better to establish their own web page.
“The site has been under review for several months and we are trying to establish our own web page for Bahamian merchants,” he said.
There were 50 different businesspersons who had signed up for the programme but received no answers, according to Mr. Wells.
Estimating that 70 percent of Bahamians do not own computers, Mr. Wells said that it is quite clear that some people are not going to be up to speed on e-commerce opportunities.
Some small businesspersons told the Bahama Journal that they do not have the necessary resources to be more active in the cyber business world.
One of the structures on the Bahamas B2B website that offers e-commerce opportunities for small Bahamian businesses is called the Bahamas Shop Marketplace.
BahamasB2B has forged a secure link with 14 international trade exchanges, offering businesses that wish to enter the e-commerce industry the opportunity to become part of a comprehensive network of companies such as those they could do business with, get advice from or use as consultants.
Mr. Wells suggested that if a Bahamian merchant selling hot sauce were to have e-commerce access and obtain a web page promoting his/her product, hot sauce lovers from all over the world would be able to view his page.
“If you were to get that page listed high in the search engines, you may receive tens of thousands of visitors per month and you would have to go to the Bahamas Development Bank or BAIC to borrow money to build a factory to keep up with the demands,” he said.
Three important aspects of the e-commerce world are working out details regarding shipping, funding and food labeling, Mr. Wells said.
It is very costly to ship items from the Bahamas to the United States and because of the United States Food producing laws; any food items has to be properly labeled according to its nutrients and contains, he pointed out.
According to First Caribbean Bank and Scotia Bank officials, an e-commerce infrastructure is not in place at their banks, but they said hope to make progress on that during this year.
But some banks are taking advantage of online business.
Citibank’s Global Corporate & Investment Bank recently introduced its Cash Management Solutions products, which include the Speed Collect and Smart Account.
The system affords easy reconciliation of deposits with invoices or purchase orders and real time online access to collections via the Web. Smart Account is a treasury management tool providing automatic investment and the benefits of reduced overdraft interest expense along with the ability to track expenses by activity or project.
The bank’s Electronic Banking Payment Products provide a secure way to make in-country disbursements to suppliers, vendors, shareholders, other companies and individuals, a bank official said.
By Yvette Rolle-Major, The Bahama Journal
