US e-tailers ready to try their luck in Romania

About ten American online retailers are ready to try their luck on the Romanian electronic commerce market, which is now in its early development stages. They will do so through DotCommerce Romania, Madalin Matica, manager of European operations for US-based DotCommerce Ltd. Boston told Ziarul Financiar.

“The first group of stores may begin operations in a matter of weeks and it includes one of the top five electronics and home appliances retailers in the US,” said Matica, without revealing the name of the respective company, though.

DotCommerce Romania is an electronic commerce service integrator and also the only European branch of DotCommerce Ltd. Boston. The Romanian office opened at the end of 2003 has made $1.8 million investments in equipment, technology and human resources so far. Its main competitors are GeCAD ePayment through its epayment.ro website and the card processing centre Romcard, represented by several major Romanian banks, such as Banca Comerciala Romana (Romanian Commercial Bank – BCR), Raiffeisen and Banca Tiriac.

GeCAD’s ePayment service, which provides full support to the company’s clients that want to conduct online transactions became functional in July 2004.

“We are aware of the huge potential the Romanian market has and of the fact that many domestic merchants want to boost sales by targeting the international market via the Internet,” Razvan Prundeanu, GeCAD ePayment chief executive told Ziarul Financiar.

DotCommerce in its turn provides full solutions for the clients that want to expand their businesses on the web. Besides the online payment processing solution DotAssure, the company also provides web design and website promotion services. DotCommerce has approximately 20 clients in Romania and about as many resellers, Matica says. The client list includes Meteor Grup (automotive industry), EuroGSM (mobile communications) and MC&CD (storage media).

“We are here to stay,” Matica said, adding the business plan devised along with the American partners covered ten years. This business plan sees DotCommerce Romania affording to make investments without amortising them for three for four more years from now on. “We will probably become profitable in six years,” says DotCommerce Ltd. Boston’s manager of European operations. Matica added DotCommerce might issue shares in view of listing on the Bucharest Stock Exchange in four of five years. The turnover of the Romanian branch is currently worth a little less than $500,000, the company officials say.

“We can’t talk market shares now, considering there are only 60 online stores that accept payment with credit or debit cards in Romania at the moment,” said Mihai Herescu, key account manager for DotCommerce Romania. “Things may change in one year, but now, all three players, us included, are just pioneers on this market.”
mihai.musatoiu@zf.ro