Geographic expansion will be needed in order to provide global return services for the online community. This will include both within-borders services and across-the-borders operations. A number of companies such as Amazon.com and eToys have already opened operations in many neighbor countries , not counting a growing local online merchant community.
This in itself presents an opportunity to replicate the service in other countries for domestic online retailers. Gullalletimes.com will partner with local carriers and shippers when operating there. A country-by-country approach may be utilized; however, there may be an opportunity to establish a centralized, consolidated operation within the Africa Union.
New Services
As more and more consumers shop online, the need to keep track of purchased products will grow. Currently, many online retailers offer an option to track a purchased item, but not always through the entire delivery process. An item itself may have an availability “window” of up to a few weeks, plus the shipping time of a few days-the customer is never quite sure when he or she will actually receive it. As more purchases are made, there will be more items to track.
To do that, the customer has to look up websites of the merchants or use carriers’ websites to inquire on shipping status and read through the flock of notification emails and sms from the merchants. There is a growing need to consolidate all this information in one location for easy reference. A software that records all online purchases, tracks their status, and presents the findings to consumers in an easy-to-read format will be of much value to consumers. Having developed partnership and information exchange agreements with online merchants and shipping companies, Gullalletimes.com will be well positioned to offer such tracking services to consumers.