Web portal for Bruneians goes live

DAVID Lo and Helena Lam, the husband and wife team behind Home Suite Home, have gone online with their latest business venture, to cater to Bruneian consumers.

Veering away from their comfort zone of home furnishing, Lo and Lam have set up a web portal called Suite Lola Lola being a combination of their names to make it easier for Bruneians to find information whether it's on travel, shopping, dining and learning.

Indeed, the website has sections on these four "activities".

"There is just so much information on the web out there, so what we are trying to do is to distil it down and that's why we chose those four activities ... everyone relates to those activities," said Lam.

"This is a global services information website that is intended for the Bruneian market," said Lam.

While the website acts as an information portal, one difference is that Suite Lola also provides a concierge service for Bruneians who want to purchase items from the United Kingdom, Singapore, the United States, or Canada.

Upon entering the website, individuals are greeted by a range of online stores from around the world, which Lo said is not what the shopper is limited to.

"A lot of people think that it is a shopping website, but it has nothing to do with it. We do not carry products to sell, we do not promote any particular products," he said, adding Suite Lola lists links to recommended shopping websites.

"Some people may not be familiar with the US sites or UK sites, so these are only ideas, and the popular ones, or those that have good deals, and by no means are you restricted to these sites, and people can use our concierge service to buy from any sites," said Lam.

Suite Lola currently features about 426 sites and has sub-categories such as electronics, and so on.

Should the couple come across promotions, they will provide the shopping codes on their site and so on.

"For example, maybe they will provide free shipping to the US, or if there is an extra 10 or 20 per cent discount, we provide that information just to make sure that you get the best shopping experience possible," Lam said.

Registration to the website and the concierge service is completely free, however due to security and verification purposes, the website requires all members to submit a copy of their identity card and proof of residence.

"We do require those because we act as a shipping facilitator and receive packages on your behalf, so that when the packages are purchased then we know who you say you are and when we pick up the package or send it to your home, we need verification that we are giving the packages to the right individual," said Lo.

Suite Lola has two different types of membership. Customers can sign up as a regular member, but once they ship more than three times, they are instantly upgraded to a premium membership.

As a premium member, shopping becomes cheaper and shipping rates drop.

"We have two different types of service, self-service where if they do accept your credit card but you use Suite Lola for shipping, and the other option is the concierge service, which doesn't accept your credit card so we buy and ship it for you, which is charged a small fee for regular members," said Lam, who added that as a premium member this fee is complimentary.

The website also has a travel section which would allow users to find out about other countries and on deals with anything related to travel.

The section that the couple are quite passionate about is the learning section, which provides links to sites for children.

"We use these sites for our kids and we let them learn things which is suitable for toddlers," said Lo.

The Brunei Times