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Hong Kong's first on-line supermarket has been launched - a collaboration between Wellcome and Hongkong Telecom IMS' Netvigator service.

Wellcome is offering comsumers the chance to choose from more than 3,000 items, which will then be delivered to the shopper's home within 24 hours through the chain's existing home delivery service.

Jonathan Smith, chief executive of Wellcome, said it was the start of a new era in shopping for Hong Kong consumers.

'We have come together with Hongkong Telecom IMS to provide Hong Kong with what we believe to be the most advanced cyber shopper service in the world,' he said.

IMS is planning to enlist other companies to offer their services through Netvigator. William Lo, managing director of Hongkong Telecom IMS, said they had several different fee models for charging companies for their use of Netvigator, either a transaction-based or flat monthly fee.

However, Joe Sweeney, managing director of Asia On-Line, was sceptical about the future success of on-line grocery shopping.

 He said the demographics of Internet users in Hong Kong suggested they would be more likely to be eating out than shopping for groceries.

'What sells on-line is what you cannot get easily elsewhere,' he said. To this end, Asia On-Line is beta testing software to allow users to shop at the company's cyber shopping centre.

They have signed up 30 companies, including Wing On department stores and several publishing companies.

Mr Sweeney said the beta version was being tested by about 2,500 users and a final version is expected in September.

Meanwhile, another on-line shopping service is about to be made available by local Web page designers, The Web Connection.

Montgomery Wong's Web Space Shop will be launched later this summer and already features 25 companies, including lunch delivery firms, office supplies companies, dry cleaners and florists.

Web Connection director Peter Hamilton described the service as offering 'everything you need to shop for during office hours, but do not want to queue for'.

The service will be free for users, who have to register on-line by providing some personal details that allow the companies to know how to charge you, and where to send the goods. For the companies, the service operates on a transaction fee basis.



Wellcome addition for HK's on-line shoppers