About 160 online retailers in the Philippines selling almost 2,000 assorted merchandise are now populating an online mall – the first in the country – hosted by SMilDS.com (http://smilds.com/ph), the flagship product of Platform2u.com, Asia Pacific’s leading e-commerce platform company. And this is happening after only seven months of opening its Philippine operations.
Platform2u.com Phils.Inc. began operations on 4 July 2009 and the following month, it introduced into the local market its 4th generation social e-commerce platform called SMilDS.com.
At the July launch, Platform2u.com Phils. Inc. chief executive officer Edward Ling announced that the company is committed to helping the Philippine e-commerce sector rise from ground zero.
According to a National Statistics Office (NSO) survey on information and communication technology use,32.4 percent e-commerce transactions were recorded in 2009 or just a third of businesses in the country benefited from e-commerce.
Platform2u.com CIO Eddie Lee said the e-commerce sector recorded only PhP5 billion (US$100 million) transactions in 2009.
Edward Ling nevertheless has tremendous hopes in the future of e-commerce in the Philippines, citing the growth of Filipino Internet users to 28 million in 2009 where 83 percent of them are below 29 years old. In 2000, there were only 1 million Filipino Internet users.These 28 million Filipino netizens are part of the global 1.5 billion Internet users who contributed to US$200 billion e-commerce transactions worldwide.
Mr. Ling urged small and medium entrepreneurs to start their businesses and put it on the web. According to him, the Philippines is a very important base upon which to launch the company's flagship product, SMilDS.com. It is in e-commerce where he smells the path to a successful and profitable business.
Microentrepreneurs and large establishments will find a useful tool in the complete e-commerce solution because it will help them build and design an online store in less than a day and start their e-commerce business immediately.
SMilDS.com is available in three packs – Lite, Full and Enterprise – at the cost of having one or two coffee frapps a day.
The SMilDS.com eco-system includes website set up and design tools, portal, customer relations management system, inventory system, payment gateway, logistics management, traffic generator, education and training and global business network.
A unique feature in the software is it can accommodate cross selling where the webstore owner can also sell products of other merchants, earn commissions, increase sales transactions and have buyers from all over the world as potential customers.
Platform2u.com Phils., Inc. chief operating officer Edgar Canlas described this cross-sell function as social e-commerce, where networking (Filipinos are very good at it) is being harnessed into the Internet. He referred to online retailing as an excellent business model because it gives any budding netpreneur a big push towards competing in the global marketplace.
Edgar Canlas and Eddie Lee said that online retailers who take the e-commerce plunge and sell their products on the SMilDS.com e-mall,will -- sooner than they realize -- be competing with other online retailers from around the world, for the attention and purchasing power of the Internet world, the third largest populated domain,after China and India.
There is nothing more personally fulfilling than being able to tell friends and potential customers that they can look at your product catalogue on your website and buy from your webstore, anytime at their convenience 24x7.
The company will soon mark its first anniversary in June 2010. Mr. Ling and Mr. Canlas have one definitive goal and that is to make SMilDS.com the country’s first and largest e-shopping website.
SMilDS.com’s social e-commerce platform is another promising channel for empowering the microentrepreneur and on a national level, make Philippine e-commerce rise from ground zero.
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