About PEOPLink
In contrast to this ".org" site, www.PEOPLink.com is a "Non-profit Global Artisan Marketplace" doubling the income of grass roots artisans by enabling them to sell directly to buyers, thereby bypassing several links in the commercial chain that normally pay them only 10% of the final retail price. All of PEOPLink's activities are based on its e-commerce platform www.OpenEntry.com (formerly www.CatGen.com). At its most basic level, OpenEntry offers a free and open source software (FOSS) client application that enables any enterprise anywhere to create their own web catalog. This software operates off-line for low bandwidth situations and generates catalogs with many sophisticated features such as credit card payments via www.PayPal.com, multilingual capability, and ability to print paper catalogs or burn them to CDs (for full list, see www.openentry.com/oe/EN/features). Moreover the OpenEntry client can upload full function catalogs of any size to any low cost server via FTP and PEOPLink is now offering free e-commerce accounts (software & hosting limited to 50 products) for one million SMEs worldwide at http://Free.OpenEntry.com These measures practially eliminate the cost barrier to entry into e-commerce for individual SME catalogs. For $100 per year, users have the option to upload their catalogs to the OpenEntry server for the additional functionality of internal searches, web traffic statistics, search engine optimization, your own domain with e-mails, and a referral system with negotiated contract tool . However, in order to generate the visibility and credibility necessary for global e-commerce, business networks (such as chambers of commerce, industry associations, and trade promotion organizations) can use OpenEntry to aggregate their members' individual catalogs into branded "metamarkets" searchable on an Oracle database. OpenEntry's many features makes it the most comprehensive e-commerce platform available for networks of SMEs worldwide. The World Information Technology and Services Alliance (www.witsa.org - "members represent 90% of the world IT market") selected OpenEntry's (by its former name, CatGen) for its 2004 Global IT Excellence Award for Digital Opportunity and the United Nations Development Programme conducted an evaluation of OpenEntry in Nepal (http://sdnhq.undp.org/e-comm) and concluded that: "The largest impact of implementing this 'pro-poor' e-commerce approach was on income and employment. Firms using it reported jobs that were directly attributable to the on-line promotion. . .3918 women" and that "a relatively inexperienced group of young IT professionals could, with the proper tools, create employment for themselves while providing e-commerce services to local SMMEs." A few examples from the 1400 CatGen implementations in 44 countries are as follows:
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PEOPLink is a
non-profit development organization, incorporated
in Maryland in 1996 under Section 501(c)(3)
of the IRS Code. Its mission is to help small
and medium enterprises (SMEs) that are the main engines of income and employment in developing
countries to benefit from the exciting new opportunities offered by global
e-commerce. 
| published with OpenEntry |