SLSTOP: A novel professional approach to e-marketing

A group of young professionals took the responsibility and the risk of introducing www.slstop.com, an internet based commercial service to Sri Lanka.

Led by its Managing Director, Ruchira Senanayake, this group established themselves as SLSTOP to introduce an innovative and professional approach in todays society. "We Sri Lankans like surprises. Imagine a surprise birthday present to a mother from her son living overseas.

Ruchira Senanayake

Imagine the happiness in that mothers mind. This is a simple example that illustrates one of the services facilitated by SLSTOP. Nowadays, internet based e-commerce services are popular all over the world. In a common parlance, this is known as e-marketing," he said.

The mechanism of the SLSTOP business model is simple and easy to use as the services could be obtained by logging on to the website and making payments using a credit card. "During this ordering process, SLSTOP gathers the receiver's name, address and the preferred time to deliver goods and services through the website itself.

SLSTOP will take care of the rest of the process, delivering the goods or services to the receivers door-step using their island wide delivery network. Not only overseas residents but anyone living in Sri Lanka as well can make use of this simple and easy service from the comfort of their living room."

SLSTOP has now established two overseas branches, in Vancouver, Canada and in Sydney, Australia, providing 24 X 7 hours client support services. There are about 200,000 registered users with them and it is growing every day.

There is a point based rewarding mechanism that could be utilized to get discounts when purchasing goods and services from SLSTOP. Simply put, SLSTOP is a virtual supermarket, where you could order anything from simple mobile reloads up to a medical service. It provides most of the goods and services that is required in your day to day life.

SLSTOP has now well established itself in Sri Lanka as an e-commerce based business entity. They have structured their business model for attracting customers and user friendliness in mind.

According to Senanayake, they would always operate within the legal framework of the country. He further says "We are on the verge of a new era where most of the things in our lives will be decided by the use and the application of the internet. Early signs of these are already evident."

The beginning of the use of internet based services coincides with the use of commonly known email services in Sri Lanka.

This was further popularized with various business organizations coming up with company websites as marketing tools to promote their goods and services.