Flora D'lite offers more ways to order flowers and gifts in Muscat, Oman

Flora D'Lite, a boutique floral retailer in Oman that opened early 2021, is now taking online orders for cakes, flowers and gifts for delivery in Muscat. Services for Sohar include cakes and flowers.

According to Flora D'lite, the company offers a wide range of flowers which are sourced and stored so that they have best-quality freshness. Same-day deliveries are possible.

The company has two physical boutiques in Qurum (next to Fun Zone) and Seeb (Links, Muscat Hills) respectively, and the company plans to expand delivery services to cover more of the country before end-2021.

GoDaddy launches in 11 Asian markets

GoDaddy, a global technology provider dedicated to small businesses, has launched in 11 Asian markets, bringing its suite of cloud-based products and expert customer care to millions of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) across the region.

With the launch of 11 new markets, GoDaddy is now in a total of 10 languages and 14 markets across Asia, including: Hong Kong (English and Traditional Chinese), Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia (English and Malay), Philippines (English and Filipino), Singapore (English and Simplified Chinese), South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Following the launch in Asia, GoDaddy is now helping small businesses in 53 markets, supporting 26 languages and 44 currencies. GoDaddy has more than 4 million international customers.

“Asia is home to one of the largest, most vibrant small business communities in the world,” said GoDaddy CEO Blake Irving. “As Internet growth and smartphone adoption continue to accelerate across the region, it’s important that these businesses are able to create strong digital identities that will help them achieve their goals and compete online. GoDaddy is committed to providing the products and services that will enable Asia entrepreneurs to easily start, confidently grow and successfully run their own ventures.”

Small and medium enterprises account for over 97% of all enterprises and employ over half of the workforce across APEC economies*. At the same time, more people in Asia are utilising the Internet and connected devices to stay informed and make purchases. Seven in 10 (72%) of people in Hong Kong access the Internet daily and 74% use a smartphone**; 81% of people in Singapore access the Internet and 88% use a smartphone**. Overall, Internet growth across Asia has grown 1,319% between 2000-2015***.

With such trends in progress, the impact of creating an online presence for small businesses can be significant. A RedShift Research survey of 1,000 very small businesses in Hong Kong and Singapore that built websites for their ventures found that 45% saw their business increase by 25% or more.

Localised, purpose-built products

GoDaddy offers a suite of cloud-based products in the local language and currency to help businesses find the perfect domain name, create a beautiful website, find new customers, and improve business productivity. Specific product highlights include:

Domains

• As the world’s largest domain registrar with more than 62 million domains under management, GoDaddy offers the largest top-level domain (TLD) inventory in each of the new Asia markets. GoDaddy’s extensive inventory includes country-specific domains for Asia markets (e.g., .sg for Singapore and .tw for Taiwan). 
• GoDaddy also offers .cn for mainland China to help facilitate cross-border commerce between China and neighbouring markets. 
• GoDaddy has an aftermarket platform as well, where users can buy and sell domain names. 

Website hosting

GoDaddy hosts more than 10 million websites across more than 55,000 servers around the world and is hyper-focused on delivering fast, reliable and easy to use Web hosting.

The company offers options such as Managed WordPress Hosting, an optimised platform for customers who require performance and scalability. All of the technical hosting aspects are managed for customers including setup, software updates, network security and daily backups.

Build a website

GoDaddy Website Builder provides a do-it-yourself design tool for building a full-featured website. Website Builder gives customers hundreds of customisable designs to choose from, integrates social media, and allows quick and effortless changes.

Business applications

Productivity tools make the business of business easier. GoDaddy provides customers with professional email connected to domain names and productivity solutions, enabling them to communicate and collaborate more effectively.

Personalised customer care

A dedicated team of customer care experts who understand the needs of small business owners complement GoDaddy products. GoDaddy offers local language customer care and a direct phone number in each of the new Asia markets, enabling customers to get personalised assistance as they create their digital presence.

*Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation
**Google Consumer Barometer
***Internet World Stats

Emirates launches Arabic mobile site

Emirates has launched an Arabic version of its mobile site. Customers using the Emirates mobile site in any language can book flights, check in online, upgrade their class of travel, as well as view and download Apple Passbook boarding passes to their smartphone.

The Arabic mobile platform has been rolled out simultaneously across 15 countries in the Middle East and North Africa including the UAE, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco and Sudan, among others.

Sheikh Majid Al Mualla, Divisional Senior Vice President, Commercial Operations Centre for Emirates said: “Mobile device penetration in the Middle East and North Africa is steadily growing and we have been seeing strong usage on emirates.com from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Egypt and Lebanon. In fact, almost two million people access emirates.com from those countries each month, and almost half of them access our site through their mobile devices. We saw a clear need for an Arabic mobile site which would allow us to significantly improve the customer experience.”

In addition to its newly launched Arabic mobile site, Emirates also has mobile sites in other languages such as Japanese, Chinese and Turkish. By the end of this year, the airline plans to roll out mobile sites enabled in additional languages, including Korean.

Earlier this year, after the overwhelming popularity of the Emirates App for iPhone, the airline extended its mobile App for the Android platform to serve its customers who use Android enabled devices. Emirates was also the first airline in the Middle East to launch an App for Apple Watch in April.

BudgetHotels.sg unveils new and improved website

Source: BudgetHotels.sg website.

Online hotel search guide BudgetHotels.sg recently refreshed their website to provide a more intuitive way to book inexpensive lodging in Singapore.

Designed to maximise mobile access and with faster loading times, the revamped site allows visitors to categorise the one- to four-star hotels in its database by price ranges such as

· Less than S$50
· S$50 - $79
· S$80 - $119
· S$120 - $149
· More than S$150

Maximising the website’s mobile responsiveness was a strategic business decision based on recent findings in the hospitality industry. According to Criteo’s 2014 Travel Flash Report released last September, travel bookings via mobile devices soared by more than 20% in the first six months of the year, and are growing much more rapidly than those booked on desktop computers. Smartphones and tablets accounted for 21% of hotel bookings.

"For the past three years, BudgetHotels.sg has been the go-to destination for travelers looking for value-for-money accomodation and activities in Singapore,” said BudgetHotels.sg founder Danny Lee. “We recognise that today’s travellers want the ease and convenience of making their trip arrangements on their mobile devices, so we strategically optimised our site to give them added flexibility, improved navigability and faster loading time.”

Detailed descriptions of featured properties include hotel facilities, room amenities and location (including a map). Proximity to subway stations is now indicated in terms of walking duration.

BHM Asia launches new booking website for its X2 and Away villa brands in Chiang Mai

Source: www.VillasChiangMai.com

Asia-Pacific hotel management, development and consulting group Bespoke Hospitality Management Asia (BHMAsia) has launched a new website for holiday villa rental that lists all villa properties in Chiang Mai under its X2 (CrossTo) and Away brands. 

According to BHMAsia, a Chiang Mai holiday villa means more space than a hotel room, with separate bedrooms and social living spaces accommodating up to 14 people in some cases. Each villa is served by a dedicated villa manager, who can arrange breakfast and traditional Thai buffets or arrange sightseeing and travel itineraries. 

The X2 Chiang Mai - Nimman, for instance, is located in the trendy Nimmanhaemin area of Chiang Mai, and will launch in July 2015. The villa’s modern retro design reflects the hipness of the area. Spread out over 580 sq m, the X2 Chiang Mai - Nimman townhouse villa offers accommodation for 14 guests with seven bedrooms and eight bathrooms.

The X2 Chiang Mai - Nimman features a living room, fully equipped kitchen, games room with snooker table, rooftop BBQ and sundeck.

The website provides full information about the villas, availability, latest deals with instant confirmation of bookings. There are choices of three, five and six bedroom villas including X2 Chiang Mai-North Gate, X2 Chiang Mai-South Gate, and Away Phucome Chiang Mai. 

Google likes mobile optimised sites. What are you doing about it?

World Markets Korea, an online marketing company based in Seoul, Korea, has listed some of the criteria that Google now looks at in determining mobile-friendly sites.
The criteria include text size, the amount of space between links and whether the content fits across a mobile screen. After reviewing these areas Google will then decide if your site is 'Mobile Friendly', the company said.

Businesses should get their web designers to update their sites accordingly. World Markets Korea also offers mobile optimisation services.

As of April 21 2015 Google gives preference to what it refers to as 'Mobile Friendly' sites when ranking a website in its searches. The move reflects a growing interest in using mobile devices to surf the Internet. As far back as the first quarter of 2014 Ofcom Research had already noted that smartphones and tablets account for 52% of users surfing the internet. 

According to Statcounter, Asia has seen an increase from 27.1% in June 2013 to 41.3% in June 2014 in proportion of Internet access from mobile devices, a year on year increase of 52.3%. In Oceania the increase is from 21.7% in June 2013 to 29% in June 2014, a year on year increase of 33.6%. 

Want to know more?

Businesses can check compliance with Google's criteria on Google's 'Mobile Friendly' test page. 

Cristal Group develops proprietary multilingual commission-free reservations tool

The Cristal Group will become the first hotel management company worldwide to develop its own zero commission based reservations tool that promises cheaper hotels.

A new multilingual website based on a proprietary booking engine will launch this month. According to Cristal's Chief Operating Officer Kamal Fakhoury, the new website will make it easier for customers to book Cristal Hotels, with extended language options that will include Arabic, and Chinese among other languages. 

“With hotels in Abu Dhabi, Iraq, Lebanon and more to come in Saudi Arabia, we are building an international client base and it is vital that we can communicate with potential customers in their language,” he said.

“Looking ahead, China and Russia have been identified as major growth markets for the future, with 140 million Chinese alone visiting overseas destinations in 2015 – while Germany remains a strong source market for destinations such as UAE.”

Further benefits of the new website will be competitive pricing, as the proprietary booking engine ensuring that hotels do not pay direct web booking commission and can pass this saving on to owners and customers. The new website will also feature a dedicated media, marketing and HR portal, he added.

“We will ensure we have international reach through partnering with global distribution experts, Travel click, but have determined the scope of the new brand website through intensive research that ultimately benefits both the client and the hotels.”

The Cristal Group was established in the UAE in 2007 followed by the British Virgin Islands in 2012 to deliver hospitality consultancy, technical services, asset management and brand management. Its vision is to be the premier business and leisure hotel operator in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. 

Journeyful redesigns website, adds more listings and better rewards

Source: Journeyful. The Journeyful 2.0 website.

Singapore-based Journeyful has re-launched the revamped website for its reward-based online travel agency, Journeyful.com. The all-new Journeyful '2.0' website has a hotel inventory of over 200,000 properties worldwide, a best price guarantee, and integration with Facebook. 

Journeyful MICE, which provides full-service solutions for business conferences, corporate events and incentive travel, is part of the website re-design. Once a query is made online, MICE consultants work with the organisation offline to tailor solutions accordingly, said a Journeyful spokesperson. 

Users can participate in the Journeyful Booking Rewards programme, as well in loyalty programmes run by participating hotels and ferry operators on the site.

Source: Journeyful. Moe Ibrahim, Founder and CEO, Journeyful.

Journeyful is also focused on getting user feedback to improve the guest experience with a public board where users and partners can suggest new features, report bugs and provide comments about the site. "We will continue to evolve the website,” said Moe Ibrahim, Founder and CEO at Journeyful. “Look out for new features and updates in the coming weeks.”

Businesses and professionals based in Singapore can request Journeyful's premium Travel Concierge Service, which offers fully customised travel services. 

Journeyful has developed an ecosystem of offerings for travel. Besides Journeyful.com, the company also runs Journeyful Travel, a physical travel agency, and develops software that enables hotels to capture bookings directly from their customers. 

The company has further soft-launched an iOS mobile app, which offers a US$10 Journeyful reward that can be used towards a hotel booking, and plans to release an Android version soon. 

Max Brenner's website picks up New Media Award Web Award

Source: Max Brenner website.

The Max Brenner website is a 'best in industry' winner for the food and beverage category in the 2014 New Media Awards, organised by the New Media Institute, a research and fact-finding organisation whose mission is to improve public understanding of issues surrounding the Internet and other forms new media communications.

The website for the restaurant, which has outlets in Australia, Japan and Singapore, is described as 'dynamic' and creating "a sense of immersion" through photography that "feels real, even messy".

"It's absolutely amazing to see so much creativity come from such varied industries and from different parts of the world. We are extremely proud to recognize their achievements," stated Barbara Eber-Schmid, EVP at the New Media Institute. "Entries were judged based on innovation, content, design, user-friendliness, how dynamic they are, and most importantly -- how well they serve their audience's needs."

View the winners of the 2014 New Media Awards here.

Landrush for .global, .website and .press domain names today

Online brand expert IP Mirror has announced that several top level domain (TLD) names will be in the landrush phase as of August 27 Singapore time (GMT +8). 

During the 'sunrise' phase for a domain name, trademark owners have an opportunity to register their trademarks, whereas others can come in during the landrush phase to obtain any of the remaining available names at a premium.  

According to the company, .global as the domain descriptor implies a property which reaches an international audience. The landrush phase for the domain name is between 27 August and 4 September, after which registration opens up to the general public on a first-come-first-served basis on 9 September.

The top level domains .website and .press are also beginning their landrush phases on 27 August. 

Aim to be the best to gain more return visits, online sales: Adobe

Source: Adobe.

New research from Adobe has found that marketers across Asia Pacific who deliver best practices are pulling further away from their competitors.

The Adobe Digital Index Best of the Best Benchmark for Asia Pacific compares the overall average versus websites in the top 20% on six key performance indicators across six regions: Australia and New Zealand, Southeast Asia, India, South Korea, Hong Kong, China and the US. Key performance indicators are mobile and tablet traffic, stick rate*, visits-per-visitor, time spent and conversion rate.

“We are seeing a major gap developing between being average and being in the top 20% of marketers across Asia Pacific,” said Tamara Gaffney, Principal Analyst, Adobe Digital Index. “For conversion rates alone, the ‘best of the best’ websites in industries that sell online deliver nearly double the average conversion rate. They are proving that making a commitment to digital excellence can result in a significant increase in revenue.”

Key findings in the Best of the Best Benchmark for Asia Pacific include:

· Australia and New Zealand, and Southeast Asia, have seen the most overall growth in tablet share; the best of the best sites achieve about 5% more tablet visits than the average.

· Time spent on websites is higher in Australia and New Zealand, and Southeast Asia, but has fallen year on year in all other countries.

· Websites optimised for smartphone visitors in South Korea see nearly 90% difference in share of smartphone traffic than an average site; in the past year the gap between average and best in class for mobile optimisation has grown in every country. Mobile optimisation refers to websites which have been optimised for smartphone visitors.

· All countries except South Korea saw an increase in stick rate year on year; India led all countries with that nation’s ‘best of the best’ marketers improving their stick rate by over 14% year on year.

· The ‘best of the best’ websites increase the amount of return visits by as much as 25% compared to the average across Asia Pacific.

“There is no such thing as ‘offline’ any more. The data is telling us that delivering seamless experiences across devices and within social media is driving the best performance and leading to superior business performance,” Gaffney said.

“Across Asia Pacific, those marketers delivering best in class are on par with top marketers around the world. For example, we can see that stick rate is higher across Asia Pacific than in the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany. This is a leading indicator of two important elements of website success – optimised marketing acquisition activities and homepage relevance and engagement.

“Finding out where your organisation falls within the tiers of the Benchmark will help identify strengths and weaknesses and can help marketers prioritise areas to focus on.”

“Businesses that can improve customer engagement and drive conversion rates via their digital channels will find themselves at the front of the pack; our Adobe Digital Index has shown that an improvement in the conversion rate of just a tenth of a percent can result in millions of dollars of revenue growth,” said Stephen Hamill, Managing Director, Adobe South East Asia. “The consumption of online content and performance of online transactions on mobile devices in South East Asia is only going to increase. 

"Singapore has the highest smartphone penetration in Asia Pacific at 87%, with other markets in South East Asia like Thailand (49%), Indonesia (23%) and Philippines (15%) gaining traction. Tablet ownership in Singapore also grew 30 percentage points in the past year to 47%, with Malaysia up 23 points to 42%1. The opportunities in the mobile arena cannot be ignored.”

Organisations can check where they fall within the Benchmark through Adobe’s Digital Marketing Maturity Assessment.

*Stick rate is the percentage of visits that last more than one page.

Kluje.com expands property management bidding e-platform

Kluje.com, pronounced "clue-jay", has extended its successful online contractor platform to over 30,000 property agents and facility managers. The agency platform enables users to locate quality contractors for jobs such as electrical wiring, plumbing or flooring.

"We have created a tailored solution for real estate agents and facilities managers who are always stretched on time to maintain and fix the properties they’re looking after. Knowing that they’ve to manage their time more effectively, we hope that Kluje.com’s agency platform can bring productivity gains for the industry," says Jamey Merkel, CEO of Kluje.com. 

Merkel notes that the site can also help with commercial renovation. "Although Kluje.com was originally targeted at the home renovation market, we have had a fair amount of interest in commercial renovation. In fact, building managers can specify during our request process if the property is commercial. I believe that this is a huge untapped market as Kluje.com expands into the B2B side of renovation,” he commented.

The new agency service is designed to meet specific needs as one account holder can service multiple residences or offices. Furthermore, the user will be able to manage the jobs posted and indicate whether the contractor should liaise with him/her or directly with the property owner/tenant. The new solution enables agents to post more home improvement jobs on the Kluje.com platform.

Kluje.com runs a simple three-step process to realising one’s dream office:

1. Post ‘jobs to be done’ on the website for free - choose 'commercial' under 'Property Type' dropdown menu.

2. Up to three quality contractors can bid for the job.

3. Select the best contractor based on their portfolio and ratings.

"We are really excited to bring additional functionality to our platform, that will aid us in our mission to create an online community of trusted renovation professionals," added Merkel.

Kluje.com intends to build a mobile app for its users to manage jobs/bids on the go. The app will be built in-house by technology start-up accelerator and Kluje.com’s cornerstone investor GHX and should be launched shortly.

HSBC Hong Kong warns customers against phishing emails

The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) has alerted its Hong Kong customers that it has no connection to phishing e-mails which link to fraudulent HSBC websites. The websites feature links such as http://mercipapa.com.br/files/.files/HK/ and http://www.birth.hk/bb3/ol.php.
 

Source: HSBC. Sample phishing email.

"HSBC would like to remind its customers that the Bank's internet banking site does not carry a web page such as the one hyperlinked in the fraudulent e-mails, and has not sent these e-mails to its customers," the bank said in a statement on its website. "The bank has no connection with the fraudulent sites involved."
 

Source: HSBC. Another sample phishing email.

HSBC asked customers to type in the website address directly into the address bar of their browsers, and asked customers who suspect that they have been duped to call the HSBC customer service hotline at +852 2748 8288 for business
Internet banking users or +852 2233 3000 for personal Internet banking customers.

New top level domain for brands with global expansion in mind

A new top level domain (TLD), '.global', has been launched at ICANN 49. The TLD will allow growing organisations with an eye on expanding beyond their home bases to create a level playing field in competing against more established brands in Europe and North America which dominate in the well-recognised '.com' TLD space.

Source: .GLOBAL website

 

The new TLD is likely to be on many corporate wishlists. While the '.asia' TLD is already in use, it has a regional feel, while '.net' does not have the same ring. “The launch of .GLOBAL today is an exciting opportunity for Asian businesses to finally get the perfect international business domain name that has been unavailable to them with .com,” said Rolf Larsen, CEO at .GLOBAL. 

“Companies in Asia had previously found themselves at a disadvantage as their rivals in Europe and America acquired the best domain names early, forcing them to pay extortionate prices on the second hand domain market.  .GLOBAL is here to re-open naming opportunities for Asian businesses who want to become global and spur innovation across the internet.”

According to the company, the .global domain is a borderless strategy which offers presents businesses with an unrivalled opportunity to establish a global online identity, which in turn can re-define or enhance their business model.  

Domain registrars worldwide will offer the choice of .global domains. Trademark holders can register their names for .global on July 9, 2014 while .global names will be open for public registration on September 12, 2014. Premium names for a select group of high-value generics and business terms will be priced separately and released via an auction system provider.

Click here for more information on new TLDs.