Harilo In the News Again

This article about Harilo was posted in print and online in Republica's The Week last Friday. It's great to see how supportive other Nepali businesses have been to the idea of online shopping, and teaming up with companies that offer a means of electronic payment such as Payway and others in Nepal is a win-win situation for everyone.

Two new Nepali websites-and one old favorite... JIGGY GATON I rarely say anything nice about Nepali websites, but I think it’s time to give credit where credit is due. I discovered two cool sites the other day, and was pleasantly surprised with how non-Cybersansar-ish they are: Harilo.com and Payway.com.np Both these sites share two important traits: they are both simple in design and rich in usefulness. Harilo, an online “shop-in-America” site, was reviewed in this paper back in April, but just in the past month or so has started to catch on(line). Harilo.com is now getting over 3,000 visits each day, and as for the shopping activity, well, just see for yourself by going here: www.harilo.com/latest. Folks are buying laptops, guitars, phones, and even furniture. This is how it works: you order anything you want from America by just finding the online sales link (URL) for a product. For example, go to Amazon.com and pick out a product, and then paste that URL into Harilo. Your account is created instantly, as well as a promise of a quote that gives you the total price of the product in Nepali Rupees and is shipped to your door here in Nepal. I tried it out for a fancy USB microphone I need for my podcasting work (USA price: Rs 7,674), and within 17 minutes, I got back a quote from Harilo for a total cost of Rs 9,250, which reflects no domestic shipping charge (as you can pick up shipments at their Kanti Path office) and just Rs 512 for international shipping + Rs 1,064 VAT. Payment options included using a PayPal, Google, or Amazon account, as well as a VISA/MasterCard. Heck, you can even pay by old-fashioned cash or check! Harilo shipping costs vary by weight, of course, and Customs may slap duty on certain items (for shoes, it could be as high as 20%) and some items can’t be ordered at all (firearms, drugs, etc.) but this has to be the best way to get products from America to Kathmandu – short of having cousin-brother Samir fill his carryon bags on the way home. Two thumbs up for this site on usefulness, and for a clean uncluttered website design – complete with social networking features (connection to Facebook, avatars, and all of that). Another new site worth praising is Payway.com.np. This is the Nepali version of the famous Paypal.com, which allows users to send and receive money online, shop online, and to also create a Nepali gateway for their own online store. There are very moderate fees associated with transactions, but compared to PayPal, they are very reasonable. Having a Pay Way account is a way to pay for goods at any website incorporating the Pay Way gateway (the list of merchants is rather small right now, but sure to grow as more merchants discover this service). Pay Way says they will soon offer other services, like a debit card for department store shopping and connections to dozens of international banks. So stay tuned on that front. Important to note: This is a BIG leap in tech here at home as now Nepal’s merchants can easily jump on the online bandwagon, and accept Pay Way payments from Nepali customers who want to shop from their living rooms and offices (like everyone else in the free world is doing). After finding this site, I began to feel like I was living in the year 2010, instead of 1950. And like Harilo.com, Payway.com.np is designed clean and clutter-free, with an interface that your hajurama could understand – if only she could master the mouse and keyboard. Besides these two new sites, there is one favorite of mine that I want to share, and this site is for the coffee lovers here who want fresh roast at a great price, delivered right to your front door. Topoftheworldcoffee.com is not a fancy nor perfectly designed website (reminds me of a typical NGO website), but its lack of glitz and polish is made up by owner Dale Nafziger’s dedication to service and quality. They deliver over 1,000 kg of fresh coffee each year to Valley denizens, and you can get beans of any type – even organic. You also get great prices, compared to the local market (trust me, I drink alotta joe). And on my last order, I even got a free coffee cup! You pay when the delivery arrives, often to Dale himself, and if there is ever a problem with your order, this company will bend over backwards to make it right. But what I really find right about Topoftheworldcoffee.com is that you can have the best organic homebrew – without ever leaving your front gate. YES! Now when merchants like Topoftheworldcoffee and Harilo get together with payment gateway providers like Pay Way, you are going to see a radical change in the way that we shop here in the Doo. Instead of slogging through monsoon mud to get our necessities and niceties, someone else will be doing the slogging and delivering those items to our homes and offices. Our personal accounting will be online and accessible, and we will truly be part of the consumer revolution taking place elsewhere in the world, where consumers are discussing their purchases, rating their experiences with vendors, and overall becoming better and even more intelligent shoppers. The Original article can be read HERE at Republica.com. You can visit the Harilo website HERE.