PUTTING up an online store may be difficult for some micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and side-hustle online sellers, but not for actress-turned-entrepreneur Nadine Lustre, who has found an easy solution that works for her.
“With Shopboxo, my team can handle inventory, manage orders and sales, all from their phones. So now we have more time to focus on other things. I’m able to see all the updates and store movements, even when I’m super busy. Shopboxo also allows customers to make payments directly to my bank account, using a variety of trusted e-wallets,” she said following the successful debut of nadinelustre.store in December 2022 and the relaunch of betty-blooms.com using Shopboxo in February 2023.
Out-of-the box solution
SHOPBOXO is a “forever free” online platform for MSMEs to build virtual stores using designer crafted templates in just a few minutes, with or without technical know-how. Storeowners can showcase their brands and products, accept online payments, and arrange delivery—all at the comfort of a smartphone app or a web interface.
Customers, on the other hand, enjoy the same convenience they get from any well-known online store or market place.
Given the sudden change in the economic and logistical situations brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic, many Filipinos turned to online selling to boost or even replace their income. Digital sellers who have the means tapped e-commerce platforms to ply their trades. A few has set up fully functional virtual stores, but the many who couldn’t do either resorted to sell on social media.
In fact in October of last year, the Department of Trade and Industry estimated that there are more than 2,000,000 online sellers in the Philippines, higher than its previous forecast of 750,000 by the end of 2022. This also translated to a significant hike in e-commerce transaction value at 15.1 percent to P264.5 billion in 2021, per GlobalData’s E-Commerce Analytics.
Because big platforms generally charge hefty commissions as sales volumes increase, a seller’s growth potential becomes limited. On the contrary, developing a fully functional standalone site is too complex and costly for most.
This makes smallest players to go online, selling goods on social media. This is problematic rather than a remedy. Any customer of these sellers deals and coordinates with a vendor, a payment channel, and a delivery service on three separate apps with every transaction. Due to inconvenience, a lot of customers are turned off, particularly security conscious ones.
On the part of the merchant, a seller has to interact with each customer personally and log each order manually. Messages that are not responded to are lost opportunities. As businesses expand, this leads to various problems—from necessitating additional manpower to order tracking and inventory management.
E-wallets are the payment method options for them, but they face problems such as daily limits on peer-to-peer e-wallet transfers. These challenge them to scale up, which could sometimes be disastrous to even try.
Fast forward to 2023, consumers know the convenience brought by e-commerce. To stay, online sellers must continue to have an edge by embracing smarter and more cost-efficient solutions.
What works for Nadine, works for others
WITH her new found solution, Nadine Lustre now has two out of 70,000 Shopboxo powered stores across fashion, food and beverage, and beauty industries all over the regions. They went live on the web within nine months of Shopboxo’s launch.
“Feedback from our merchants is that they increase their revenue by up to 30 percent after launching their online stores on Shopboxo,” said Shopboxo Chief Executive Officer Kaniyet Rayev. “Merchants can reduce time spent on operations of their stores by 50 percent with Shopboxo Order, Inventory and Product Management.”
Funded by Google’s Gradient Ventures, Shopboxo already has strong local partnerships, notably with GCash and logistics providers Ninja Van, Lalamove and GrabExpress. Because of this, customers can pay with all the leading e-wallets, and major credit or debit cards, then arrange for delivery sans leaving the store of the Shopboxo client merchant.
“Being able to easily create and use a website is perfect for MSMEs like us,” shared Shopboxo merchant Justin Ang, cofounder of Dear Pets. “With more time to focus on operations and our customers, we saw a 34 percent increase in sales and a 22 percent increase in basket value within the first two weeks of using Shopboxo.”
Shopboxo also has a toolkit for digital transformation of even the brick-and-mortar establishments like restaurants. QR-enabled online menus and a scan to order and pay make ordering and paying easy. What’s more, a pickup function allows diners who find the restaurant on Google Maps to conveniently order and pay before they arrive and pick up the food.
“What we offer is an app that is so easy to use that it saves MSMEs time, and recurring overhead and frees up precious hours to develop and market their products, all while offering their customers convenience that is indistinguishable from the most established e-commerce sites,” said Rayev.
To set up a Shopboxo online store, visit https://shopboxo.io/ or download the app from the Playstore and Appstore.
