CEO of Exabytes, Mr. Chan Kee Siak has once again appeared in an interview with The Edge, the highly popular and noted business magazine of Malaysia to share his insights into eCommerce and his e-entrepreneurial journey which started when he was at the tender age of 19.
Commanding 21% of market share in Malaysia and serves over 50,000 customers in 121 countries, Exabytes Network was founded by Chan back then when he was still enrolled in Tunku Abdul Rahman College (TARC). The hardworking chap sold computer hardware and helped customers to design their websites to earn some extra pocket money before he discovered the potential market of web hosting in Malaysia. “Back then, the Internet was a very new thing and there were very few players offering hosting in Malaysia,” Chan said.
Chan’s first 100% online based business started by the name of hostkaki.com, which was later changed to Exabytes Network when Chan decided to drop out of TAR College and fully concentrate on his online web hosting business. Described by Chan as “a once in a lifetime opportunity”, business of Exabytes had since tripled and quickly expanded from reselling to buying its own servers and renting then out to clients.
Have you ever heard of the term “Sensitive Name” when it comes to .MY domain names? In fact, .MY Domain Registry in Malaysia has recently introduced SNDRP, an administrative process designed to provide resolution to .MY DOMAIN NAME DISPUTES with respect to “Sensitive Name”. Your domain can be deleted if it contains “Sensitive Name”!
What is SNDRP?
SNDRP is a system that is designed to handle the complaint about the respondent’s domain registration which contains a “Sensitive Name”.
The complaint has to establish the Domain Name registered by someone consisting of “Sensitive Name” during process submissions of a complaint.
In fact, Respondents who are Owners of the domain name have to prove that the disputed domain name does not contain a sensitive name. If owners prove it successfully, the domain name will remain with the respondent. If the disputed domain name really is a “Sensitive Name”, the domain name will be deleted if the decision confirms it is.
Indeed, what types of domain names are considered “Sensitive Names”?
According to SNDRP Policy and Rules, a Sensitive Name is a Domain Name which contains word or words in English, Malay and romanized Chinese (including dialects) and Indian dialects, which:
are sensitive to the Malaysian public;
are obscene, scandalous, indecent, offensive or contrary to Malaysian public norms or policy;
comprise of derivatives and colloquialisms of words that are offensive; and/or
consist of pejorative expressions in terms of denotation, connotation or association.
If you are the registrant (you are now called ‘the Respondent’) of a sensitive domain name, your domain will be deletedif ‘the Complainant’ successfully establishes that the use of your domain name contains a Sensitive Name.
However, if you as the Respondent are able to prove that the disputed domain name is not a sensitive name, you will get to keep your domain name.
So watch out!! Does your domain name contain something sensitive? 🙂
Hari Raya Haji, the “Festival of Sacrifice” is an important and auspicious day to mark the end of Hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca. The “Festival of Sacrifice” is a public holiday in Malaysia which falls on November 6 this year, 70 days after the end of holy month of Ramadan.
While animals such as sheep, goats and cows are sacrificed before being distributed among the Muslim community on this special day, the celebration of Hari Raya Haji is also a reminder to share one’s wealth with the less fortunate.
Exabytes would like to wish all Malaysians Happy Hari Raya Haji and Happy Holidays!
To celebrate this special occasion, our office will be closed on 7 November 2011. In case you encounter any technical issues, don’t sweat it, as our professional technical staff will still be working 24×7 at [email protected] to assist you day and night.
This post covers the unique core aspects of e-commerce sites that make online shopping possible.
Customers appreciate the convenience of ordering online, but if a site is cumbersome, is veiled about its pricing and polices, or does not seem to provide personal benefit, they leave.
E-commerce holds the promise of making customers’ lives easier and more enjoyable.
They can find things that they otherwise would never come across, and they can order anywhere, anytime, with only a few button clicks.
People enjoy the pleasure of the discovery, the simplicity of the process, and the convenience of the delivery.
But on many e-commerce sites, customers do not always understand what’s being offered and whether it will be of any personal benefit.
1. Make It Clear Why People Should Purchase from You
It’s important to make clear from the outset what value you’re providing to customers.
Why should they purchase anything from your website? Do you offer low prices? Fast shipments? Unbiased, high-quality product reviews? A wide selection of products? A specialized set of products that are hard to find? Ease of use?
This is your up-front value proposition, the core value that is woven into the design and organization of the entire website.
2. Provide Many Ways to Find Products
Web sites must provide multiple ways to navigate because customers look for products in many different ways.
Some customers know exactly what they’re looking for and want to type the name of the product into a search bar and jump straight to that product’s page.
Predictive input can help streamline the product selection process further.
Other customers have only a vague notion of what they’re looking for and want to explore lots of browsable content to get a better sense of what’s available.
Find new ways to help your customers scratch itches they didn’t even know they had.
Tell your customers what new and interesting products you have by showcasing Featured Products on your Homepage portal.
Help them find related or more expensive versions of products by cross-selling and up-selling.
Drive more sales by providing personalised recommendations specially tailored to their individual interest and needs.
3. Keep it Convenient
Customers love to be able to search vast stores of information, see many clean product detail pages that provide thorough descriptions, and compare products.
In doing so, they can make more educated decisions about the products and services they need.
On the flip side, if the information you provide is not easy to find, your customers will become frustrated and perhaps even leave.
Finding one thing they like may motivate customers to look for other things they like.
A site that facilitates collecting multiple items in a shopping cart can greatly simplify the shopping process.
Keep customers focused on their tasks so that they don’t become distracted when they go through the quick-flow checkout process.
Customers might abandon the entire order if checkout doesn’t seem simple and straightforward. Remember, at this point their goal is to finish shopping, and your goal should be to close the sale as smoothly and as quickly as possible.
For an e-commerce business that might benefit greatly from impulse buying, it’s a good idea to create a site that supports as many computing platforms as possible so that customers can act on their impulses whenever and wherever they are.
The Mobile Screen Sizing, Mobile Input Controls, and Location-based Services patterns can help you incorporate mobile Web capabilities into your sites.
4. Consider Including Some Advanced Features
After you’ve solved the basic mechanics of shopping and purchasing, you might want to look at some more advanced issues.
For example, many people purchase products as gifts for other people.
Gift Giving involves numerous details, such as wrapping, receipts, personalized notes, returns, and buying multiple gifts and sending them to multiple destinations.
As another example, some people may be interested in seeing their order tracking and history to check the status of their purchases or see what they’ve bought in the past.
5. Avoid Surprises
Customers want to know what to expect when they start shopping because it will take at least a few minutes to complete the transaction, and they don’t want to have a surprise toward the end.
Full disclosure about site polices up front is important to shoppers. They generally have 3 areas of concern:
a. Privacy and Security
Customers value their anonymity because it provides them with a sense of privacy and security from being defrauded or abuse by people who gain access to their personal information.
Build trust by establish a set of fair information practices that will be followed throughout your company, and make these practices clear in your privacy policy.
Also be sure secure connection whenever personal or financial information is being transmitted.
b. Additional Charges
Sometimes, customers find products at a lower price when shopping online, but only discover that the shipping and handling charges erase the savings.
Granted, if people factor in the time saved because they’re not personally travelling to and from the store, shipping and handling costs can sometimes be justified.
However if the costs of shipping and handling are surprisingly high, shoppers become discouraged.
They think the online merchant is trying to trick them and they become distrustful.
Providing information about all the costs involved with a purchase early in the shopping experience will build trust.
c. Returns
Although some people may never shop online, more will shop on a site that provides easy returns because they know that, if what they buy doesn’t work for them, they can return it for a full refund.
GRAND BALLROOM, GENTING INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION CENTRE, OCTOBER 28, 2011 − The winners of Golden Bull Award 2011, the most prestigious and representative annual business award which honors the best of SMEs in Malaysia by presenting to them their highly deserving recognition for their hard-earned success and exceptional achievements, were announced on October 28 in Malaysia’s popular mountain-peak tourist destination, Genting Highlands.
This year, some 100 outstanding Malaysian companies were given the greatest honor in the business world, which included the winners of
Easy.my – the hosted eCommerce platform that made “Starting an Online Store As Easy As Frying an Egg” a reality had organized yet another long awaited training for its eager participants who had grabbed their seats some more than 2 months ago. October 20, 9.30am, 30 early risers gathered at Wisma MCA, KL on 12th floor to acquire the know-how of starting their online stores within a few steps and sell like a pro online. This time around we at Easy.my were also proud to have representatives from the famous payment gateways Paypal and iPay88 to join us dishing out their valuable advice and giving more insights to our keen participants into the vital role of payment gateways and their power in making online purchase a breeze and a peace of mind.
Deepavali or Diwali, the festival of lights and the most important festival widely celebrated by Hindus and Indians in numerous countries, is the day when oil lamps are lighted up to thank the gods for the happiness, peace, knowledge and wealth that the Hindus and Indians have received.
While Deepavali or Diwali is celebrated with lots of open houses and jovial savoring of mouth-watering cuisine and delicacies in Malaysia, on a more spiritual level, it is actually the celebration of the inner light that lightens up one’s mind and burns away ego, anger and greed.
In this special October, we at Exabytes wish all Hindus and Indians a Happy Deepavali, and everybody a Happy Holiday!
In conjunction of this celebration, our office will be closed on 26 October 2011 and resume operation on 27 October 2011.
In case you require any technical assistance, don’t worry, as our professional technical staff will still be working 24×7 to assist you day and night.
Web Accessibility 2011 is an event by St. Nicholas’s Home for the Visually Impaired.
Web Accessibility 2011 is a collaboration with Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM).
Venue: Dewan Persidangan Universiti (DPU) USM
What is Web Accessibility 2011?
Don’t miss this chance to learn how accessibility can benefit your organisation from St. Nicholas’ Home’s knowledgeable IT staff and Get on-the-spot accessibility assessment of your website and consultancy.
Web Accessibility 2011 is also a chance to learn how St. Nicholas can work with your organisation now and in the future to promote greater accessibility and interoperability.
Mind “Accessibility” as Your Business?
Accessibility not only helps people with visual challenge.
It also benefits older users, mobile phone users, and other individuals who want to do business with you.
The percentage of older users with age-related accessibility needs is growing.
Improved accessibility can help your organisation to reach out further to this increasingly important customer base.
Organisation with accessible websites benefit from, reduced legal risk, demonstration of corporate social responsibility, and increased customer loyalty.
Web Accessibility does provide positive Impact on search engine optimization from accessibility improvements. Making it more visible on the Internet.
Who should attend?
Any company or organisation that relies on the Internet for publicity, increasing its market share, or raising its revenue.
Speaker Profile:
Mr. David Hathaway, IT Instructor and Consultant, St. Nicholas’ Home, Penang.
Mr. Songkran Soisaklang, Creative and Integration Developer, Betimes Consultancy inc., Bangkok, Thailand.
Mr. Albert Cheah, PhD candidate, USM, Penang.
Programme
TimeEvent
8.30am – 9.00am
Registration
9.00am – 9.15am
Welcoming Speech
9.15am – 9.30am
Opening Speech
Session 1
9.30am – 10.15am
Keynote Speaker 1: Business Case for Accessibility by Mr. David Hathaway
10.15am – 10.45am
Tea Break
10.45am – 11.30am
Keynote Speaker 2: Evaluating a Site for Accessibility Needs by Mr. Songkran Soisaklang
Session 2
11.30am – 12.15pm
Speaker 1: How to make a site more usable by low vision visitors by Mr. Albert Cheah
12.15pm – 1.00pm
Speaker 2: Html and Flash Accessibility by Mr. David Hathaway and Mr. Albert Cheah
1.00pm – 2.00pm
Lunch Break
Session 3
2.00pm – 2.45pm
Speaker 3: How St. Nicholas helps businesses with accessibility needs
2.45pm – 3.30pm
Speaker 4: TBA
3.30pm – 4.15pm
Panel Discussion
4.15pm – 5pm
Closing Ceremony
Registration Fees:
RM 80
*Registration fee includes entry gifts, tea time, and lunch
*students and NGOs are free of charge
For any enquiries, please contact:
Mr. David Hathaway
Email: [email protected]
D.A.R.E. BizStart 2011 was the first and largest entrepreneur show in Malaysia created by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs which aimed to highlight the four key facilitative factors that would jumpstart any business – D for design; A for acceleration; R for realize and E for empowerment.
Organized by the famous ‘Mad Incubators’ under the leadership of CEO Mr. Andrew Wong, the entrepreneur show included 20 seminars and workshops and had attracted over 100 exhibitors to come forward for an unprecedented opportunity to network and create partnerships as well as gaining access to potential new customer base with the huge circle of 3000 participants.
Wong, whose entrepreneurial journey had also hit rock bottom many times before becoming successful, had always stressed on the idea of D, A, R and E in ensuring any entrepreneurial success.
At BizStart 2011, the participating entrepreneurs or speakers broke down this process in details on how DESIGN drove a brand and a business forward, how ACCELERATE helped in business development and turning urgency into currency, how entrepreneurial visionaries REALIZE and understand their strengths and create alliances compensating for any weaknesses as well as how business mentors played an EMPOWERING position in any entrepreneur’s life by providing long-term commitment and a deep-seated investment in one’s future.
All these extremely important entrepreneurial philosophy and ideas, were clearly defined and dished out in the 20 seminars and workshops as well as ‘one on one business clinics’ at D.A.R.E. BizStart 2011.
Event kick-started at Sunway Piramid Convention Center on September 28 at 9.00am sharp, with keynote presentations by esteemed speakers Mr Puan Chan Cheong, MD & CEO of Green Packet Berhad, Ms Chok Kwee Bee, MD of Teak Capital, DATUK BADLISHAM GHAZALI, CEO of Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) and MR. PREMESH CHANDRAN, CEO of Malaysiakini.
At 10.30am, seminars and workshops started to take place at different venues – Room 1, Room 2, Room 3 and the stage on various topics such as the “how to” series on payment gateway by ipay88, business model by Groupon, cloud computing by Exabytes, starting a franchise business by Malaysian Franchise Association, starting a mobile technology business by Mobile Industry group, starting a SOHO business by Soho Assist Asia Sdn Bhd and many more.
On stage, topics of presentations included cloud computing by Microsoft Malaysia and inspiring women entrepreneurs by Alexdrina.
Moreover, Exabytes also took the opportunity to give an early introduction of Cloud Computing, a service which is to be launched in the very near future by Exabytes.
Widely prevalent in north America, cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility over the Internet.
To make it even more exciting, our Easy.my exhibition booth offered our visitors who dropped us their business cards a chance to walk away with an iPad2 in our lucky draw!
Furthermore, customers who signed up for Easy.my package at D.A.R.E. BizStart 2011 enjoyed a jaw dropping FREE Auto-Upgrade to Platinum Plan worth RM3,199 when signing up for silver plan at only RM799.
The free upgrade lasts a LIFETIME, i.e. customers still pay only RM799 in the subsequent years for their renewals, while enjoying the wonderful benefits of the platinum plan.
At 5.00pm, the expert of Easy.my, Mr. Joel Tan from Exabytes gave a 30-minute workshop which attracted more than 25 keen participants who joined us to find out how they could build their own web stores in just a few minutes and start selling on Facebook as well as their own web stores.
Mr. Joel Tan had all this while dedicated his time and effort on the development and enhancement of Easy.my.
Participants waiting for the workshop to start
On September 29, the second day of the event, starting-up funding forum by SME Corp, MDV, CGC, Cradle and MCMC started at 10.00am with various workshops and talks such as “maximize the power of iPad to do your business” by mobile industry group, “finding the right business model for your business” by MAD Incubator, “managing customer relationships through CRM” by Mixsol Sdn Bhd among many others took place at different venues.
Joel Tan, the expert of Easy.my from Exabytes preparing to give a hands-on experience to our booth visitors on how one can start his/her online store and sell on Facebook as easy as frying an egg
After the lunch break from 1.00 to 2.00pm, various workshops and talks resumed. Bank Negara Malaysia, AKPK, Action Coach, MAD Incubator and Tech Sailor were among the speakers who presented some highly interesting topics for example “Don’t use social media – unless you know how”, “6 steps to massive results” and “Managing your debts effectively”.
Finally, it was the most exciting session for entrepreneurs and also one of the unique sessions of D.A.R.E. BizStart 2011 – The Pitch!
This precious 30-minute session was for inventors and technologists who needed funding for their business startups to pitch their invention or innovation to the group of investors or established businesses in 5 minutes for each individual.
Many made use of the most productive 5 minutes to achieve their business startup goals or their dreams in life before the event finally came to an end at 5.00pm.
TOYM, or better known as “Top Outstanding Young Men” presented by JCI, Malaysia (Junior Chamber International, Malaysia), is a prestigious award which acknowledges the exceptional achievements of ten individuals in Malaysia aged from 18 years to 40 years in different fields as well as their contributions to the society and the community.
The top 30 finalists and 10 winners of the awards were selected from different fields and categories such as Business, Economic and / or Entrepreneurial Accomplishment, Political, Legal and / or Governmental Affairs, Academic Leadership and / or Accomplishment, Cultural Achievement, Moral and / or Environmental Leadership, Contribution to children, World peace and /or Human rights, Humanitarian and / or Voluntary Leadership, Scientific and / or Technological Development Personal Development and / or Accomplishment as well as Medical Innovation.
This year, CEO of Exabytes, Mr. Chan Kee Siak was short listed as the ‘Top 30 Outstanding Young Men’ at the age of only 30 at his first time participation in this awards under the category of Business, Economic and / or Entrepreneurial Accomplishment, prior to the award ceremony which was held at Sunway Pyramid, KL.
The honor of being short listed as the top 30 was indeed an astounding one, judging by the extensive competition coming from numerous exceptionally outstanding individuals in different areas throughout Malaysia.
Chan, one of the youngest finalists at the table
The finalists and winners of the awards were determined by a distinguished panel of judges consisting of highly regarded personalities including Tan Sri Ramon Navaratnam, Tan Sri Augustine Ong, Tan Sri Dato’ Dr. Lin See Yan, Dato’ Haji Harun Din, Datin Ann Bt Abdul Majid and Toh Puan Datin Dr. Hajjah Aishah Ong on 3 general guidelines:
Have you ever heard of the term 
