Story of an IT Fiasco – Trolleymania

Minutes after publishing this post I received a message from Alert Managing Director Claudine Cassar in which she expressed her desire to give her company’s point of view and highlight a few inaccuracies that were expressed in the post. I have invited Claudine Cassar to send me a write up that will be posted as an unedited post on J’accuse in the interests of clarity and fairness.

Malta, 2010. No, I do not have another “medieval” sin/fire and brimstone/backward society story to tell. The reason I had to double-check the year on my calendar this time round was the resounding flop that the government’s latest IT baby seems to be. It’s called Trolleymania and its launching was in the news (or should I say in the Government Gazette?) yesterday.

In one of its latest attempts in what it believes to be its own crusade to drag Maltese society kicking and screaming into the century of e-commerce, the IT Ministry headed by IT supremo Austin “e-powers” Gatt took the initiative of creating an e-mall. I’ll leave the official description to the Government mouthpiece:

TrolleyMania.com, as the venture is called, is aimed at all local businesses which want to venture into the world of e-commerce and start selling their products online, the ministry said. The project is a public-private partnership between Government and Alert Communications.

So there you are. Let’s start by looking at the idea. Essentially insofar as governmental initiatives go this is a laudable one. Admittedly it does come 7-10 years too late (amazon & ebay went online in 1995 – you’d expect  a knee-jerk reaction to set after six years of the e-success story) but hey it IS the government we are talking about. What with all Smart talk you’d have expected some bright spark to open his mouth and say – how about some e-venture capital to put our little businesses on the map?

Let me put it this way. 5 years ago when the saudade was beginning to set in I could buy Kinnie online from a Dutch website (mall if you like, but I’m guessing you rarely use the word) but there were few e-shops in Malta. If my memory serves me well I first used an e-service to buy a bouquet of flowers from Zammit Nurseries (and that still had to be followed up by a phone call to ensure the hazy online transaction was ok).

So. It’s the year of the lord 2010 and the government wants to help small businesses. Well, originally the MITA wanted to rope in medium enterprises but the GRTU was not exactly thrilled by the proposal. This sort of blew up the IT ministry’s plans since, by its own admission, without the products of larger enterprises the site would in all probability fail to attract a “critical mass”. Darn.

Which left the Ministry with what exactly? Well it left the ministry with a “public-private partnership” with Alert Communications Ltd. Which is another way of saying that Alert Communications will get some dosh to set up a venture that is normally the kind of investment entered into by entrepreneurial risk-taking individuals. With the excuse of stimulating the e-economy Alert gets a boost in custom and sales – because you pay to enter the scheme and you pay for maintenance.

Which is alright if you’re Alert. And Ok for a quickie PR exercise for Minister Gatt and PS whatsisname and MITA Chairman Claudio Grech and the sandwich caterers engaged for the launch. BUt is it ok for a real boost of the Maltese e-commerce industry?

Bah. The website takes ages to load, gets confused easily with the cookie system and once you choose a category of products you seem to be unable to switch to any other. The range of products presented – bar some paintings which should be emarrassed by the company with which they are plonked  – gives the impression of a glorified tal-Lira shop. The marketability of the name “TROLLEYMANIA” is highly dubious and is the obvious result of a guaranteed government backing where the pr team does not have to really worry that much of attracting new clients – the gov will hand out the dosh ANYWAY.

Trolley? Trolley? Mania? And then since when do we speak of “Malls” in Malta? Or Europe? The half-hearted approach is evident all over the slow loading website. Whatsmore a quick look around the Maltese corner of the web would have shown Minister Gatt the results of Maltese entrepreneurial spirit. Take the book sector: you could sprint over to the garish but effective Malta Online Bookstore or the amazon lookalike at Agenda, lest I be beaten with an encyclopaedia I rush to mention Merlin (website coming soon).

There’s more in other departments. The ebay style websites have flourished, restaurant delivery sites have improved and it is possible to browse some perfectly reasonable individual retailer sites without being put off e-commerce for life. The contribution of the IT ministry-Alert public-private initiative to the e-commerce world will barely register in the future.

So if you have 250€ to spare you’re best advised to invest it in some sound online advertising. Alternatively open an account on ebay and become a recognised e-vendor. Barrier to trade? Highly unlikely.

P.S. The site in question is www.trolleymania.com – “Scheduled Maintenance” is underway as I type.