Hifunda.com Portal Launched - Counts Down Final 36 Days to the New Year

Launch Of Exhaustive Portal of the millenium, essentially a business site which provides users with features like Auction, Barter, Buy Sell, Matrimonial, Real Estate, Employment, Education and more. Site has been designed keeping in mind the growing needs of people due to the growth of E-Commerce in India.

Calcutta, November 25, 1999
Thursday, November 25 marks the final 36 days of 1999, meaning the New Year is just around the corner. As a way to help users of the internet stay informed and prepared for the rapidly-approaching new year, Hifunda.com a content service provider, today launched www.hifunda.com an exhaustive Portal Site at a grand function in Calcutta today.

"Hifunda.com brings together virtually everything related to the Global psyche, that our users may want," said Vijay Jain, founder Hifunda further explaining his Portal site he said "hifunda.com" offers content in depth, appealing to all sections of people."

Accessible through Hifunda.com:

Auctions: Hifunda Auction is a site where one can bid for any item from toys to cars, shoes to jewellery, computers to houseware, anything you can think of. This online auction offers great savings on computers, consumer electronics, gifts and more. Looking for a rare art or a vintage Porsche? You’ll find all these and much more at Hifunda Auctions. Whether you’re hunting for bargains, hoping to find the unexpected, or enjoying the thrill of bidding against people from around the world, the Hifunda Auctions marketplace is always open.

Barter:Barter or counter trade is defined as a medium of Exchange for Commodities or Services for another without the use of Money. This method of acquiring goods and services existed for centuries before currency was introduced and is still in use today among people & Government.

Hifunda brings this generation old mode of business with the latest technology. Modern Barter utilizes the computer making pairing buyers and sellers easier and more efficient than ever before. People can barter away their used, unused product for other products they need or simple barter away their trade surplus with something they need.

Buy Sell:This is a specialised and specific site for the modern business community – buying or selling any product - who are very focused and know what they want. If buyers or sellers are looking for a product or selling one, they just need to be very specific of their needs instead of not knowing what they want. A good site for those who are into exports or imports.

Real Estate:This is a place where one can find their dream home, office or a Bungalow. This section has been designed according to International standards on what people look for while buying any properties. The information system is very exhaustive and leaves no ambiguity. Here also the main theme is on specific needs or offer, rather than vague information available elsewhere. Individuals, Real Estate Agents and Dealer Directories – you can easily and quickly view the real estate news that serves your purpose. This unique real estate site is designed to make it easier for home shoppers to look for and buy apartments / flats, buildings, farm houses, bungalows, land, office space or plot. This exhaustive site allows house-hunters to quickly and conveniently view, a wide variety of homes that meet their personal requirements.

Employment:Job-hunting is as much a headache to a person searching for a job than for those who are looking for qualified people to run their company. It has become cumbersome to interview and scan a whole list of candidates for the prized job.

Hifunda automates the entire process where if the Key words tally, an email will be send about the match – both to the company as well to the candidate. This online classifieds has services and programmes specifically designed to facilitate the career development process for ambitious individuals. One can become a member and post resumes for free. Have jobs matching your criteria emailed to you free of cost.

Potential employers can post jobs online and get the most suitable candidates who meet the desired criteria and save themselves from searching for a right candidate.

Matrimonial:Hifunda matrimonial is an online medium to choose your life partner. Parents worried about their daughter can post their profile without any fear of their data getting misused in this BAD BAD world. There is a unique feature, which safeguards the interest of all candidates. View and access to the data is restricted and based on bilateral authentication.

Education:Hifunda education site is an exhaustive site meant both – for students who need direction on the what to study and what job opportunity their study will take them to, and also to those who are looking for places where they can study. This site is going to be a directory of different schools, colleges and universities of the world. One has the facility of reading catalogues online and applying for the respective universities online in future. 

Bargain Hungama:Hifunda bargain is the first of its kind in India and one of the unique sites of the world. It is mainly meant for the bargain hunters. People, by nature want to bargain and it provides them the fulfillment of a "Good bargain Purchase". On the other hand, sellers are provided with huge discounts during the festive seasons, distress sales, and clearance sales, which go unnoticed by the buyers. Each one of them is trying to impress upon the other for more visibility and space.

Hifunda bargain provides a means for all buyers and sellers to highlight their discounts so that interested buyers can approach them. Hifunda Bargain is a place for special sales and discount sales. This site would contain all the best bargains in the industry. This is a hunting site for buyers trying to find out bargains online. Companies could put their products here, or else advertise here to get maximum visibility.

Travel:Hifunda Travel and Tours is an interactive site relating to travels and tours. It would be enlisting all the eminent Hotels, Motels & Resorts places worldwide, their contact details, tariffs, facilities, features etc. This highly interactive and informative site would contain a detailed list of all Major cities and towns – country wise / state wise/ city wise, all major historic places of interest. Names and addresses of Hotels, Motels, Resorts and Restaurants in each city & town. Hotel & Resort bookings / reservations. Flight information and online ticketing, railway information, Vacation packages and cruises. Car Rentals and bookings package tours, Travel Agents, Tour Operators, Special Travel deals and discounts, Food and Cuisine.

Starting soon on Hifunda:

• Free Email:
• Free Chat:
• Child Parenting:
• Search Engine

About Hifunda:   Hifunda is a content service provider that offers a branded network of comprehensive information and shopping services to users worldwide. As the first online navigational guide to the Web from Eastern India www.hifunda.com is the leading guide in terms of potential traffic, advertising, household and business user reach, and has the potential of developing into a well recognised brand with the internet. The company is headquartered in Calcutta, India.

PROFILE OF VIJAY JAIN
QUESTION AND ANSWERS
INFORMATION SHEET

Is E-Commerce Safe?
Although Internet security breaches have got a lot of press coverage, most vendors and analyst argue that secured online shopping on reputed sites are actually less dangerous incyberspace than in the physical world.

That’s because retail sales employees who handle card numbers cause a great deal of credit card fraud. E-commerce systems remove temptation by encrypting the numbers on a company’s servers. For merchants, e-commerce is actually safer than opening a store that could be looted, burned or flooded. The difficulty is in getting customers to believe that e-commerce is safe for them.

Consumers don’t really believe it yet, but experts say e-commerce with IBM’s Net Commerce are safer than ordinary credit card purchases. Every time you pay with a credit card at a store, in a restaurant – and every time you throw away a credit card receipt- you make yourself vulnerable to fraud.

Browser makers and credit card companies are promoting an additional security standard called Secure Electronic Technology (SET). SET encodes the credit card numbers that sit on vendors’ servers so that only banks and credit card companies can read the numbers.
No e-commerce system can guarantee 100-percent protection for your credit card, but you’re less likely to get your pocket picked online than in a real store. 

How do I start selling online ?
From cheap and simple to expensive and complex, there’s a wide range of products designed to get your e-commerce site up and selling in a matter of days or weeks.

Small businesses may not have to look beyond their local Internet service providers for a bare-bones solution. Hifunda Mart offers the possibility for selling your product. Plus, if your page resides on Hifunda’s servers, the company handles electronic payments via Net Commerce.

If you’re ready to step up, you can use Hifunda’s Store, which lets you have a business Web site from your browser. Hifunda hosts the site for you.

Of course the software sticker price is only a small fraction of what it costs to run an e-commerce site. Many high – end e-commerce products are used by third –party companies to provide services for individual merchants.

Most companies take advantage of e-commerce hosting services. This is a low-risk, low-cost way of finding out how to do it.
How Can Small Businesses Take Advantage of E-Commerce?
Large companies pour millions into fancy e-commerce sites, but even mom-and-pop shops can make money on the Web with a simple, no frills site.

Sometimes, all it takes to succeed is the promotional savvy to get noticed by customers. Word of mouth, postings in newsgroups, and registration with search engines may be enough to get the customers rolling to your site.

Although everyone can benefit from a home page on the Web, e-commerce isn’t for everyone. Firms likely to profit most are those offering products or services that are not readily available locally. A small bookstore might not want to advertise readings by authors and tell its customers about specials, but it would not want to compete with established sites. But a Web based business that sells premium coffee, chocolate and speciality foods- might find new customers in small towns around the country, where people can’t find lemongrass or Swiss bitter chocolate at the corner store.

What Are the Biggest Barriers to E-Commerce?
According to a survey conducted, shoppers don’t trust e-commerce, they can’t find what they’re looking for, and there’s no easy way to pay for things. Other than that, it’s smooth sailing.
Customers are worried about credit card theft, the privacy of their personal information, and unacceptable network performance. Most shoppers still aren’t convinced that it’s worthwhile to hook up to the Internet , search for shopping sites, wait for the images to download, try and figure out the ordering process, and then worry about whether their credit card numbers will be flicked by a hacker.
To convince consumers, e-merchants will have to do a lot of educating. However, most buyers will soon be won over in just a few years when more and more and business will be linked up. If Web pages were labeled with tags giving products and pricing information, it would be easier for search engines to find stuff to buy online. That hasn’t happened yet, because merchants want people to find their products but not their competitors – especially if another companies are cheaper.

Who Stands to Loose from Business Moving Online?
The companies most directly threatened by e-commerce include travel agencies, entertainment ticket operations, mail-order catalogs, and retail stores- particularly software stores. E-commerce is already successfully invading their territories.
As Bill Gates puts it, e-commerce is about to eliminate the middleman. The buzzword of the day is disintermediation, a way of saying that anyone between the seller and the buyer is in big trouble. But a closer look reveals that e-commerce may be creation of a new kind of middleman.

What is the future of E-Commerce
Rest assured, there is a bright future for e-commerce. Once the details of online commerce are worked out, it and the Internet in general could reshape the structure of the business world.
The huge growth of virtual communities – people getting closer together in ad hoc interest groups online – promises to shift the balance of economic power from the manufacturer to the consumer. At least, that’s the view of an international management consulting firm.

These virtual communities are already making their presence felt. Investment site lets member’s exchange investment advice without the benefit of a stockbroker. Virtual communities erode the marketing and sales advantages of large companies. A small company with a better product and better customer service can use these communities to challenge larger competitors – something it probably couldn’t do in the real world. Expanding markets through virtual communities, Companies would rather than fight the trend, and some smart companies will help build such communities and use them to reach customers.
Successful selling on the Web requires a complex blend of Web design and database programming, server configuration skills, promotion and marketing savvy and much more.

Fortunately the web can help. This spotlight will point you to tips on how to set up and run online business, and Hifunda’s own special brand of e-commerce insight. Hifunda will also show you other e-commerce services and software for everything from outsourcing the store to processing. Hifunda has also included links to helpful e-commerce articles, tutorials, and resource sites from around the Web. All one needs is something to sell.