Archive for the ‘Expansion to Australia’ Category
Monday, August 4th, 2014
Photo credit; Marc Falardeau on Flickr
Payment startup Stripe has added Australia to the growing list of countries it services.
Started by a trio of PayPal co-founders three years ago, Stripe operates in the US, Canada, Britain and Ireland, and is beta-testing in Finland, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden.
Its latest international expansion came after it struck a deal with Chinese payments service Alipay, an affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding Inc, to allow Chinese buyers to pay for purchases on the US service.
“Stripe’s mission is to grow Internet commerce by providing everything an online business needs to accept payments,” John Collison, co-founder and president of Stripe, said in a blogpost recently.
Stripe touts a simple-to-use multi-currency service as an easy way for businesses to begin accepting payments from around the world. It takes a cut of several percentage points off transactions across its platform.
To read more about this story, click here.
Tags: Australia, business, online, Stripe
Posted in Australia, business, E-mail & the internet, Expansion to Australia, internet usage, online business, Online Sales, online shopping, online stores, Paypal, selling online | No Comments »
Thursday, June 12th, 2014
Photo credit; Jason A. Howie on Flickr
Facebook is bringing its Premium Video Ads and Video Metrics to Australia, one of seven markets outside of the US where Facebook is rolling out the new services.
Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) chief executive Alice Manners said recent estimates showed video advertising was growing at 55.7 per cent, representing 14.3 per cent of digital display dollars, for the quarter.
Facebook Australia and New Zealand managing director Will Easton said that Facebook Premium Video offers brands new ways to engage and connect with over 10 million Australians who access Facebook daily.
“In the coming months, we’ll be working closely with advertisers to deliver high-quality video campaigns that create the best possible advertising experience,” Mr Easton said.
The 15-second video ads appear in users’ newsfeeds and play automatically with the sound muted until they are clicked on.
Facebook began selling ads in the United States in March.
To read more about this story, click here.
Tags: Australia, business, Facebook, online, video, video ads
Posted in Australia, business, E-mail & the internet, Expansion to Australia, Facebook, internet usage, online business, Online Sales, online shopping, online stores, selling online, social media, social networking | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 19th, 2014
Photo credit; Bev Sykes on Flickr
Australia continues to attract online businesses from overseas and the latest to open a branch in the country is San Francisco-based Eventbrite.
Eventbrite, an online platform that allows users to promote and sell tickets to live events, will open an office in Melbourne soon, while file-sharing service Hightail (previously known as YouSendIt) has already opened its Asia-Pacific headquarters in the city.
Eventbrite’s husband-and-wife founders, Julia and Kevin Hartz, visited the city to formalise a sublease deal with start-up 99Designs to house the beginnings of the company’s fifth international office. The company, launched in the US in 2006, already has offices in San Francisco, London, Argentina and Brazil.
The Australian office will focus on sales and marketing. “Australia has always been one of our core international markets since the beginning of time,” said Julia. “We really started to see traction in 2008, just a couple of years in [from launching]. We have localised the site for Australia but we are now interested in really getting in there and having a strong presence.”
To read more on this story, click here.
Tags: 99Designs, Australia, business, Eventbrite, Melbourne, online
Posted in Australia, business, E-mail & the internet, Expansion to Australia, internet usage, online business, Online Sales, online shopping, online stores, selling online, Success story, web-based | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 9th, 2013
Swiss ticket reselling marketplace Viagogo has officially launched in Australia after running a nine month beta program in the country.
Photo credit; Bev Sykes on Flickr
Originally launched in Switzerland in 2006, the firm specialises in the resale and distribution of tickets for events. It aims to serve as a fair and secure marketplace solely for tickets, stealing traction away from more general e-commerce sites like eBay and Gumtree.
Founder and CEO of Viagogo, Eric Baker said the company had always aimed to launch in Australia and it even registered a Facebook page called ‘Viagogo Australia’ back in December 2010.
“We want to ultimately be global, we want to be everywhere. If and when people colonise the moon, we want to be on the moon,” Mr Baker told Technology Spectator.
“If there were an opportunity for us to register a Facebook lunar page now, we should probably be looking into that,” he said.
To read more about this story, click here.
Tags: Australia, business, online, Switzerland, Viagogo
Posted in Australia, business, E-mail & the internet, Expansion to Australia, internet usage, online business, Online Sales, online shopping, selling online | No Comments »
Wednesday, September 4th, 2013
Online crowd sourcing site Kickstarter has announced that it will open up to Australian and New Zealand projects in the near future.
Kickstarter is hosting sessions in Sydney and Melbourne this month for people who have project ideas.
Founded in 2009, Kickstarter allows people to pitch their ideas to the general public to solicit funding for their ideas to get made. Movies, video games, gadgets and music has all been funded through the U.S.-based site.
To read more about this story, click here.
Posted in Australia, business, Crowd funding, E-mail & the internet, Expansion to Australia, internet usage, investment, online business | No Comments »
Tuesday, August 13th, 2013
United Kingdom online betting giant William Hill has agreed to purchase Australian online betting firm Tom Waterhouse for at least A$34 million.
The online betting site has agreed to pay A$34 million up front and assume A$6 million in debt for tomwaterhouse.com.
It will pay up to A$70 million more on a sliding scale based on tomwaterhouse.com achieving earnings growth between A$10 million and A$30 million in 2015.
Tomwaterhouse.com was established in 2010 and is one of Australia’s fastest growing online racing and sports betting businesses.
It is a privately held company owned by managing director Tom Waterhouse and others and has around 80 employees based in Sydney, Melbourne and Darwin.
“We are pleased to have secured this acquisition,” Ralph Topping, CEO of William Hill. “International expansion is a key part of our growth strategy and making Australia our second home is a priority. Acquiring tomwaterhouse.com gives us a rapidly growing business that appeals to a complementary customer base.”
Australia has the world’s biggest gambling habit per capita.
To read more on this story, click here.
Tags: Australia, betting, Britain, business, Darwin, gambling, Melbourne, New South Wales, Northern Australia, online, online gambling, Sydney, tomwaterhouse.com, United Kingdom, Victoria, William Hill
Posted in Australia, business, Expansion to Australia, online business | No Comments »
Tuesday, July 23rd, 2013
Small and medium sized businesses in Australia or from overseas can now adopt a sub-domain name under www.businesses.com.au.
Australian domain name rules outlined by the .au Domain Administration prevent anyone but Australian businesses or companies from owning .com.au or .net.au domains.
But the opening up of business.com.au to subdomain names means that overseas businesses who want to do business in Australia can now have a local domain name.
Local private people, contractors, business owners and incorporated or unincorporated businesses can also have an online presence on the premium domain for a low weekly rental.
Greg Rogers, from Faxts Media which runs Businesses.com.au, said that applications are now open anyone in Australia or overseas to apply for a Businesses.com.au domain.
“AuDA rules are strict. An Australian business name or ABN is an essential requirement to own a .com.au domain name,” Rogers said. “I checked with AuDA myself and there are no restrictions on sub domains if the main site is owned by Australians”
“Netregistry owns a .com domain www.au.com. They have been selling and hosting websites as www.sample.au.com which are sub domains of .au.com, for years. There are 1000′s of them. Businesses.com.au is Australian and perfect for any business.”
“Businesses.com.au will allocate sub domains on a first come first served basis. We will not allow trademarks to be used unless the applicant has permission or is the holder of the trademark.”
To apply for a domain name with businesses.com.au, email ceo@businesses.com.au.
To read more on this story, click here.
Tags: Australia, business, business.com.au, domain name, online, subdomain name, website
Posted in Australia, business, domain names, Expansion to Australia, internet usage, online business, Online Sales, online shopping, online stores, selling online | No Comments »
Saturday, June 29th, 2013
The online retailer The Iconic (officially named Internet Services Australia 1 Pty Ltd in Australia) that popped up in 2011 and started laying waste to its bricks and mortar competitors is now itself in trouble.
Recent reports have emerged that The Iconic, which promises excellent service and speedy delivery as its selling points, is hemorrhaging both money and staff as it tries to cut costs to stop the bleeding.
From August 2011 to December 2012, Iconic had revenue of $30.6 million but a loss of more than $44.7 million.
The company’s owners, the German Samwer brothers have used a similar model of doing business that has led to great success in Germany, India, Singapore, Poland and the Philippines through their head company, Rocket Internet.
Internal documents from the company that had been obtained by the media show that the company’s business plan is to jump into new markets and become number one at any cost using the promise of free, overnight delivery.
And whilst it has worked in other markets, it seems to have stumbled in Australia so far.
To read more about this story, click here.
Tags: Australia, business, The Iconic
Posted in Australia, business, Expansion to Australia, online business, Online Sales, online shopping, online stores | No Comments »
Friday, October 29th, 2010
Don’t have cash, don’t want to sign or use your pin? Just tap your card in front of the new reader, and you are off. Mastercard and Visa have been rolling out the “tap and pay” machines for transactions under $100 AUD.
Banks are quick to roll out the machines, with Commonwealth Bank expecting to have 20,000 introduced in stores by the end of the year. NAB expects to have 25,000 out by mid 2011.
Not all cards have the technology yet, but those that do have the logo clearly displayed on the card.
What about privacy and theft concerns? Commonwealth Bank says the $100 limit is too small to attract fraudsters, who are interested in large, big ticket purchases. The Banking Ombudsman notes that the Electronic Funds Transfer Code of Conduct covers transactions using tap and pay, so customers can be compensated for fraud providing the other conditions under the code of conduct are met.
The full article from Sydney Morning Herald is available here.
Tags: Mastercard, new technology, Paypass, Visa
Posted in cybercrime, Expansion to Australia, NAB, technology | No Comments »
Friday, September 3rd, 2010
SMH reports today that the Sony e-reader has reached Australia, to be launched next week.
The smallest e-reader Pocket Edition features a touch screen, and infrared sensors to read finger swipes. This device sells for $229, around $76 more than Amazon’s cheapest Kindle e-reader. It also features higher-contrast electronic ink display (16 shades of gray), is smaller in size, but still has a comparatively large screen.
The bigger models, called the Daily Edition (not able to be purchased in Australia) and the Touch Edition, have also been upgraded. The Touch Edition will cost $299, and will have a longer battery life than the previous model.
Both the Touch and Pocket Editions are easy to use, and read from. However, a major disadvantage is that 3G cannot be used for downloading, so users will have to sync their e-books via USB.
Tags: battery life, e-book, Kindle, Sony e-reader
Posted in e-reader, Expansion to Australia, Sony | No Comments »
