For Immediate Release

Hong Kong, 9 October 2000 - bigboXX.com, Hong Kong's premier office and business supplies b2b e-commerce portal and a member company of Hutchison Whampoa's E-commerce Resources, announced its overall success in phase one operation and its moving forward to phase two.

Currently, bigboXX.com has been increasing its customer base at an average rate of 20% plus per week. The company aims to acquire 6,000 customers by the end of this year and gain 10% of the office supplies market in 2000.

Dedicated to serving office administration and finance managers, bigboXX.com now offers over 5,000 products to more than 500 large corporations and over 4,000 SMEs in Hong Kong.

"For the last two months, our systems have run smoothly and successfully. We have been receiving a great response to our brand-building exercise and advertising campaign. This has led to a rapid take-up of our offer considerably above our initial expectation. Our new customers - large corporations and SMEs -clearly appreciate our value proposition and the many other benefits from managing their purchasing requirements on line," said Stephen Winterhalder, Chief Operating Officer of bigboXX.com.

Since its official launch in July, bigboXX.com has gained a sound reputation in responding to the needs of customers. This is reflected in the positive feedback from clients. Eddie Lam, Director, Business Development of Fortune Reality Co Ltd commented, "We welcome the e-commerce concept of bigboXX.com, which offers a one stop shop and excellent service to administrators. The website has quite a comprehensive range of products. We look forward to seeing bigboXX.com increasing their ranges of goods and services in the future."

Juvena Lam, Senior Administrator of Principal Insurance said, "The main reason for choosing bigboXX.com as our supplier is that their prices are really competitive. We are impressed by their delivery agents, who are friendly and professional."

"As a unique b2b e-commerce website, we have a focussed operation with a clear product offering. From our research, we find that the features that our customers like most are the Group Account Workflow Solution and Online Reporting. Our customers have given us valuable comments and thus in phase two, we will focus on enhancing our service offering and further customize our web offer so that we can meet the needs of our customers even better," said Sammy Tse, CEO of E-Commerce Resources of HWL.

Notes To Editors:

1. bigboXX.com is a member company of Hutchison Whampoa's E-commerce Resources.

2. bigboXX.com offers a comprehensive range of office supplies and business services at highly competitive prices.

3. bigboXX.com operates on a technology platform based on a number of mySAP.com enterprise applications, specifically designed and built for the business.

4. Web features offered include customised favourite items lists, standing orders, group account workflow for multiple users (orderers), authorisation limits, approval workflow, order status tracking (warehouse/transit/delivered), order history analysis by order point/category/product, and payment status of past deliveries.

5. bigboXX.com uses a state-of-the-art e-payment solution provided by HSBC. All financial transactions are direct with HSBC in a completely secure environment and no credit card information will be lodged with bigboXX.com.

6. bigboXX.com's hub for storage, order processing and distribution located in Kwai Chung. The 50,000-sq-ft Distribution Centre has 40 staff. It has 13 delivery vehicles operating. Orders taken on bigboXX.com are immediately retrieved at the warehouse and processed for next day delivery.

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