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The Acting Assistant Postmaster General (Business Development), Mr Michael Chung and General Manager of Yahoo! Hong Kong, Mr Alfred Tsoi today (December 7) announced the launching of the new Yahoo! Shopping concept, which offers online merchants the payment collection and delivery solutions by Hongkong Post Logistics Services.

The collaboration is designed to meet the demands of the merchants, especially the SMEs in Hong Kong that require online payment gateways and a one-stop solution to create an e-commerce website to attract online orders.

When a merchant joins the new Yahoo! Shopping platform, Yahoo will provide a user-friendly tool for the merchant to set up an online store in their web site. Hongkong Post will provide the backup logistics service for door-to-door delivery of the merchandise and payment collection from the customer taking delivery. This means merchants can now start their online store economically and hassle-free. They can also take advantage of the high traffic of the Yahoo! Hong Kong site and get exposure to many potential customers.

At today's launching ceremony at the General Post Office, Mr Chung handed over the first cart of parcels ordered online to Mr Tsoi, to symbolise the joint launch.

"Yahoo! Hong Kong, being the No 1 and the most popular portal in Hong Kong, is keen to promote the popularity of online shopping in Hong Kong. We are proud to have Hongkong Post, well known for its excellent service and reliability, as our partner in providing logistics and payment services to the Yahoo! Shopping merchants. Being a public trusted organisation, Hongkong Post will definitely increase our customers' confidence when they shop online," Mr Tsoi said.

"We are pleased to team up with Yahoo! Hong Kong in providing a one-stop value chain solution for Internet merchants." Mr Chung said. "Hongkong Post is dedicated to providing reliable and value for money logistics solution to ensure products are moving smoothly from merchants to the end consumers. The establishment of this service totally demonstrates our value to excel through development and our mission of proactively responding to changing market requirement."

The new Yahoo! Shopping platform demonstrates that Hong Kong is entering into a new era of e-business. It further strengthens the competitive edge of local merchants and reinforces the leading position of Hong Kong as an e-business community in the new era of e-Commerce.

For details about the new Yahoo! Shopping platform, please visit shopping.yahoo.com.hk/store

Ends/Tuesday, December 7, 2004

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