We've recently received a request to integrate a mailing list facility into a client's Lutho website. This sounded like a great idea and we are glad to announce that this functionality is now available to all our clients.

To implement mailing list subscriptions on your Lutho website, all you need to do is create a free account with YourMailingListProvider (YMLP), activate their API functionality and provide us with your API key in the Lutho Control Panel. Your website will then automatically display a link on your Contact Us page to invite visitors to your site to subscribe to your mailing list. When a visitor enters their email address, your YMLP subscription list will automatically be updated to include his/her details and you will be able to send out text or HTML-based newsletters using YMLP's facilities. 

Registering with YMLP does not cost anything and you will be able to change your account type to a free account shortly after registering, which will allow you to send 1000 free emails per month to a contact list that does not exceed 1000 people. If you need to send more mails, YMLP offers very reasonable monthly subscription rates. Of course, we will also not charge you any additional fees to make use of this added feature.

For more information on activating mailing list subscriptions on your Lutho website, please click on the Mailing List icon in the Lutho Control Panel. More information on the service provider by YMLP can be found by visiting their website. As always, you are also welcome to contact us directly with any enquiries or requests.

Happy writing!

Exciting news!

We have recently completed our e-commerce integration project that will allow all current and future clients with Lutho websites to not only easily load and maintain their product listings themselves using the Lutho Control Panel, but to also offer those products for sale over the Internet!

All you need to start collecting Visa and MasterCard credit card payments, Ukash vouchers and Instant EFT transfers is a Lutho website and a PayFast account. PayFast is an independent South African provider of payment solutions that charges no monthly fees and very reasonable transaction fees.

We have taken care of all the usual integration issues so that you are able to load your products and start selling over your Lutho website in only a few minutes.

To get started, you will need to do the following:

1. You will need a current Lutho website. If you have not done so already, purchase a month-to-month website subscription for only ZAR 145 from our home page and follow the easy instructions. Your subscription will allow you to quickly build a website and get a professional email address at your own domain for your business.

2. Log into the Lutho Control Panel, click on the Products tab and load your products. You will be able to provide text descriptions and images of the products that will reflect on your Lutho website. Products can be classified under your chosen product categories and you can have a number of combinations under each product (eg different sizes or colours). Don't forget to specify the price that you want to sell each product at (note that online payments are currently only supported for ZAR prices).

3. Register for a new PayFast Business account and activate your account by clicking on the link in the email from them. Next, log into your PayFast account and click on Integration under the My Account tab and make a note of your Payfast Merchant ID and Merchant Key.

4. From the Lutho Control Panel, click on the Payfast tab to provide Lutho with your PayFast credentials. Our system will need these credentials to let PayFast know to credit your account with receipts from your customers

5. That's it! Your products will appear under their categories on your website with more details available when a visitor clicks a product. Visitors to your website will be able to buy online by clicking on the shopping cart next to a product combination on that detail page. You will receive an email informing you of the sale so that you can arrange for delivery to the buyer.

We are sure that this added e-commerce functionality will provide our clients with a great deal of extra value at no additional monthly cost. As always, we welcome your valuable feedback!

Note: PayFast is an independent company from Lutho and you will be entering into a seperate legal agreement with them when you open a PayFast account. Selling products over the Internet leads to a binding contract between you and the buyer and you will need to deliver on sales made. Online transactions processed by PayFast will attract fees as stipulated on their website.

Over the last number of weeks our development team have been working hard to create a brand new version of the Lutho Control Panel. As you know, the control panel is used to post news articles, photos, product information, testimonials, accreditations and more on your website in real time.

Although the previous control panel did the job, it was not always very intuitive. For example, one had to first go to the upload photos section to upload a photo before loading a product that uses that photo. The new control panel makes use of popup dialogue boxes that make things much easier. You would now simply create the product and upload the photo there and then as it is needed.

There are many other enhancements in the new control panel which we believe would be best appreciated by trying it out yourself. If you are unclear about the functionality of any aspect of the control panel, you are, as always, welcome to contact us.

The new control panel can be accessed at https://cp.lutho.com.

In order to maintain the best possible level of support for our customers, we have recently upgraded our call centre to an enhanced facility in Midrand, South Africa.

Our call centre operators will be on standby to take your calls during SA office hours between 08:00 and 17:00 CAT, Monday to Friday. In addition, we have introduced an interactive voice response system to provide common information to new and existing customers. Outside office hours, callers will be able to leave a voice mail message to receive a callback from one of our consultants the following morning. Email support via support@lutho.com also remains available.

Together with the new call centre, we are also launching our new maxi-call number. South African customers can now dial the easy-to-remember 086 123 3210 to reach our support staff. The number for international callers is +27 12 685 0494.

We hope that the enhanced support centre will contribute to an even more rewarding experience for you, our client, in your dealings with Lutho.com. As always, we would appreciate your honest feedback in this regard.

Ukash South Africa has recently announced that Ukash vouchers are now available at Pick 'n Pay stores nationwide. These vouchers are an innovative new payment mechanism that makes it possible for clients that may not have a credit card or a bank account to transact on the Internet.

According to Ukash's website, "Pick n Pay is a major South African retailer, with over 740 stores across South Africa. Pick n Pay stores are located in all major towns and shopping centres across South Africa and Ukash is available throughout".

At Lutho.com we aim to make payment as convenient as possible and also accepts Ukash vouchers (in addition to credit cards, instant EFT payments, debit orders and paypal transfers). This means that you can purchase a Ukash voucher for R150 at any Pick 'n Pay and use the Ukash voucher to purchase a Lutho.com website voucher for R145.

The Lutho.com website voucher will then allow you to quickly and easily get your own website and professional email address at your own domain name.

For more information, please feel free to contact us.

I can’t believe we’re a week into April already! With Easter just around the corner, I thought it’s high time for an update.

First of all, we had to say goodbye to Gratia at the end of last month as she decided to join MY World Multimedia Ministries. Gratia was a fantastic asset to the Lutho team and will be dearly missed. We wish her all the best with the new beginning!

In future, we have decided to make use of the services of the VOA call centre and so our support number has changed to +27 12 364 2593. Please let us know how you find their service. For after-hours support, you can continue to dial +27 11 021 4353. In the near future, we will also be introducing our new easy to remember national support number: 086 123 3210. Of course, our email support always remains available. 

Our client base continues to grow – welcome to all our new subscribers! I am confident that you’ll find our services excellent value for money. Our website hits also increased, with the total number of unique visitors up by about 12% over the last month. We plan to introduce a number of enhancements over the next month or two that we hope will lead to even faster growth, so watch this space...

On the product enhancement side, we’re still working on Picasa integration to make uploading a lot of photo galleries even easier. In addition, we have started a project to streamline the control panel interface to make it simpler than ever to load news articles and product information on your Lutho website. We will also be expanding the products feature so that you can load more information and even integrate with an e-commerce provider to accept online orders. We expect most of these developments to be completed by the middle of the year.

We’re also quite excited about our joint venture / wholesale arrangements that are close to finalisation. Hopefully we’d be able to tell you more about these in the next month or so.

Have a very blessed Easter time and if you’re planning on going away over the holidays, please keep safe! As always, please let us know if you have any suggestions for improvement or particular requests.

All the best
Hanru

Digitalmall.com, one of South Africa's leading online shopping portals, has added Lutho as a store. Digital Mall was voted the best Online Mall and best Online Retail site for 2000 and their current estimates give Digital Mall approximately 40% of the total business to consumer e-commerce market in South Africa.

You will see three Lutho products listed when you visit www.digitalmall.com and click on the Lutho store: our DIY subscription, our basic assistance package and our design assistance package.

In addition to accepting credit card payments, the Digital Mall online shopping portal also accepts FNB's Cell Pay Point mobile payment solution, in addition to already long list of payment methods that customers can use to purchase a Lutho website subscription which includes debit order, direct deposits, PayPal, Ukash vouchers and instant EFT.

Enablis has recently made their new shopping and discount voucher portal, Enablis Global Xchange (EGX), available to the public. The site is located at http://www.egx.co.za.

EGX is an exciting new venture that allows Enablis members that have Lutho websites to promote their products through the website. For a small monthly fee, members are able to advertise discounts on their products to fellow Enablis members or the public at large. Visitors to EGX  are able to search for and issue discoun vouchers to themselves for free. These vouchers can then be redeemed at the participating members, whilst the members are able to pro-actively contact the prospective client.

Lutho worked closely with Enablis on the development of the EGX website and did most of the behind-the-scenes development work. The system was also designed to piggy-back on Lutho's integrated website building system which already allows Lutho customers to capture product details for publication on their own websites. By adding only a few extra fields, Lutho members that are Enablis members can now also advertise the products on EGX.

Final testing is currently being conducted and we expect EGX to go live in the very near future. We'll be sure to keep you posted and to let you know once the site is officially launched.

There are a number of plans in the pipeline to extensively market the EGX website, so it will likely prove to be an excellent way for SMEs to promote their businesses. Please feel free to contact us for more information on the EGX website, becoming an Enablis member or getting your Lutho website set up.

Just a quick note that the South African Revenue Service (SARS) have released a guide on the new turnover tax that is available to SMEs.

The new turnover tax system is available to most small businesses that have a turnover of under R1 million and allows for taxes to be calculated based on sales in stead of taxable profit. It therefore makes sense for SMEs that have relatively low turnover figures with high profit margins to elect to rather be taxed based on turnover (see the attached file for the sliding scale rates applicable).

Another important consideration is that SMEs that elect the turnover tax regime will only need to submit two provisional and one final return for the tax year in stead of submitting VAT returns every second month, provisional tax returns as well as STC returns.

Registrations are now open for the 2009/2010 tax year and close on 30 April 2009. For more information, please refer to the following brochure from SARS: TT Flyer Web.pdf (378.37 kb).

At Lutho, we strive to keep things simple and easy without compromising on quality. We therefore welcome the simplification of tax compliance requirements for SMEs and commend SARS on this innovative new initiative.