Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.
Survey finds
Hawaii firms making
gains in e-commerce
But many still
More firms discover potential of 'Net By Tim Ruel
see roadblocks
Star-BulletinNearly 9 percent of Hawaii small businesses make at least one out of every 10 sales through a Web site, according to a state report released today, but opinions about the success of local e-commerce still vary drastically.
The University of Hawaii at Manoa's College of Business Administration and the state Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism released a $100,000, five-month survey this morning at a day-long seminar and workshop at Ala Moana Hotel. State officials said they analyzed 760 Web sites run by companies that have at least one office in the state. They also surveyed 103 business and interviewed several private and public sector technology leaders.
The report found that 37 percent of Hawaii small businesses maintain a Web site, while 25 percent sell products and services online, and just more than 4 percent make most sales through their site.
Yet, perceptions about the success of local e-commerce are mixed, with the 21 interviewees equally split into three groups of opinion:
"I think one thing that is striking to me is that opinions do vary widely," said Tung X. Bui, report leader and professor of decision sciences at UH.Hawaii e-commerce is booming;
One unidentified respondent said: "There is a mental block here. Quite a few people have a "can't do' attitude."
Others cited specific roadblocks, such as the lack of venture capital and high taxes and regulations.
Bui said business people who have done well in e-commerce already tend to have the positive outlook, while more conservative opinions come from those who have not made it yet.
The lead e-commerce industry, transportation, handles 56.9 percent of all orders online. Next comes media, computers and accommodation, and at the bottom of the list is real estate, since people do not usually pay for property on a Web site.
Items showing the most success include vacation packages, research materials and popular agricultural products and flowers. "I guess we are ready to do e-commerce," Bui said.
More small businesses
in state discovering
Internet potentialThe Ilima Hotel, which has seen
By Tim Ruel
online reservations increase, is
among those who have benefited
Star-BulletinONE out of every 10 visitors who stay at the 99-room, independently owned Ilima Hotel in Waikiki book their room online.
Phil Sammer, general manager, expects Ilima's online bookings will reach one in five within two years. The Nohonani Street hotel, owned by the Teruya Brothers Ltd., first hit the Web in 1995 but only got serious about doing business online last year, Sammer said. The biggest improvement, he said, was having someone regularly check and answer electronic reservation requests.
"What we found out, basically, is the simplest of things: Answer, and they will come," Sammer said.
Although Hawaii's consumer sites are dominated by some of the big names of island business -- HiloHattie.com, crazyshirts.com, Outrigger.com and Hawaiianair.com, to name a few -- most local retail sites are like Ilima.com, small operations quietly doing business.
In fact, more than 500 business trade names in Hawaii have been registered as "dot-coms", according to filings with the state Department of Commerce & Consumer Affairs. One site exclusively resells yo-yos from Makiki. Another, based downtown, offers bottles of muscle-boosting tablets for up to a dollar a pill.
Of those 500 registered Web businesses, however, most are foreign-owned or not operational, while some are "under construction" or their owners said they were doing little business.
Still, there are undercurrents in Hawaii's small-business online community, including a group of six Web entrepreneurs who have joined forces to share ideas.
The as-yet-unnamed group's organizers, John Pescador and Scott Murakami, started their own Web sites last year to make extra money.
Pescador, who maintains the Hawaii state government Web site, also runs Shopping-Hawaii.com -- selling clothing, CDs and jewelry. Murakami used to manage projects for Oahu software and multimedia companies, and now owns an Aiea-based dress and shirt retail site, AlohaFunWear.com.
Pescador and Murakami were trading marketing ideas and concluded they lacked resources to advertise their sites on the mainland.
"Some people have money. Some people don't. Some people have the knowledge. Some people don't," Pescador said.
The two found four other entrepreneurs who also sell made-in-Hawaii products online but are not advertising on a large scale. The group of six now meets every month at Ryan's Grill at Ward Centre to talk about pooling money to market together.
One of the new club members is Charijean Watanabe, a hotel food and beverage veteran who created eShop-Hawaii.com in March. Her Mililani-based site serves as a mall, retailing products from about a dozen local stores, including Jade Food Products and Noh Foods of Hawaii. Watanabe takes revenue out of a mark-up on the products. Her company's name is Made by the People of Hawaii Inc.
Watanabe has seen many Web ventures in Hawaii fail, usually because their owners did not know the importance of marketing, and especially branding, she said. "There's something missing between these techie people and real-life people," she said.
The Ilima Hotel, meanwhile, has found that online business is worth the time and effort. Sammer said just a few days of business at Ilima.com easily covers the monthly cost of maintaining the site.
Sammer said the success of the Web site -- developed by Pete Martinez, president of Hawaii Internet Emporium Inc. -- has come as a pleasant surprise to the hotel.
"I think (Martinez is) a little surprised, too, at how well we're doing," Sammer added.
Six Web entrepreneurs have created a support group and invite other Web owners in Hawaii to join them. Anyone interested should visit the entrepreneurs' individual Web sites and send an email. The sites are: Web addresses
