Hey Laopride - first post! I live in Malaysia, visiting Laos for my first time in about 10 days or so to meet up with some friends passing through. I made some free shipping modules a couple of years ago for free e-commerce packages like osCommerce and Zen Cart so that online businesses in Malaysia can automatically include accurate shipping costs in their orders. I've been working on an updated super-duper version recently, and wondered if I can do the same for Laos.

It seems like if you have an Internet connection, you can download a free e-Commerce package, set up an account with someone like PayPal and start trading on the Internet. The shipping cost thing just makes it a bit easier to be competitive on price. Do many people have online shops in Laos?

All I'm after at the moment is to see if anyone is interested. My upgraded shipping quotation service will still be free for low-volume users, but I'm thinking of charging for higher-volume users about 10USD per year or so. This all succeeds or fails based on whether I can get the data from EPL, but if I can it should make life that much easier for people to start up their own online shops.

Woah I wrote so much   I'd be interested to know what you think. My project site (it's a work in progress - don't expect too much!) has an API page here:
http://spider.my/about/API.xhtml
and a little demo widget here:
http://spider.my/about/Shipping_widget.xhtml
and a world shipping cost (from Malaysia) map here:
http://spider.my/demo/shipping-quote-world-map.xhtml

Interesting? It's hard to see without actually going through a checkout for real. What happens is that the checkout will offer a few different shipping options (with data from my service, based on the weight of the order), the customer chooses one, and it's added onto the order total. Customer pays by PayPal or credit your local bank account. When you see the money, you pack the order and take it to EPL (or whoever) and pay them the right money (which you already have from your customer) for the selected shipping type (express, courier, donkey etc)

Hello, spamming fool here again. So I was in Vientiane a few days ago - loved it and want to go back. I went to the Post Office and found someone who gave me a copy of their EMS (Express Parcel Shipping) rates. I added them to my online shipping quotation project:

http://blog.lolyco.com/sean/2011/01/28/laos-shipping-quotations-for-e-commerce-o...

I still can't find a Laos-based online shop. All the components (software, payment clearing, shipping quotes) are available for free on the Web. Is there another obstacle to people setting up their own online shop in Laos that isn't obvious to an outsider?

ban him and his whole family, spare no one! lolz