Saturday, August 13, 2011

The shopaholics’ network




by Ana Valenzuela

Published Manila Standard Today

August 5, 2011





We all know of Multiply.com—either heard of it or have an account on it. With all the renovations on social networking sites, Multiply too is getting a makeover.

Multiply currently has 130,000 sellers, and more than 88,000 of them are based here in the country. It just won’t be another social networking site; it’s revamped into social shopping. Apparently, it is catering to a market where it has innovatively been utilized by users worldwide.

“We are a doing a transformation, from a hundred percent social networking site to a hundred percent social shopping site with full ecommerce functionality,“ says Jack Madrid, country manager of Multiply Philippines. “It’s social because we are engaging with our community to improve what they have been using Multiply for—which is buying and selling of goods. Now, it will remain social because we will not remove the features that have made Multiply popular. All we did is we made the photo album into a product listing and we are still going to allow messaging and communication tools between buyer and seller and between Multiply, buyer and seller.

Multiply introduces new features into the website to accommodate a friendlier buyer-seller vibe for its users. Now, a marketplace is made available where products are categorized. There are product listings, shopping cart, payment gateway, buyer protection for merchants and consumers alike.

Buyers need not be afraid of bogus sellers as “Buyers are going to pay Multiply, and Multiply would be the one responsible to pay our merchants, “says Jack. “So, we are giving buyers a blanket of security that we know the merchants, who they are, their business documents. So, in the event of any problems in purchases we are offering a guarantee.”

Among the online merchants are Suyen Rivera Lopez of House of Flair and Jonie Cheng of Mamaway. The two have been selling online since 2009.

Like most shops, they assure us of their products uniqueness. “Some of the products are available in Manila, but they are not available in Visayas or Mindanao, so that is where I mostly cater to. But most of them are US brands that are not available here in the country,” says Suyen who sells beauty products.

Jonie, on the other hand is the exclusive Philippine distributor of Mamaway, a nursing wear brand. It provides an option to moms who are pregnant or recovering from giving birth, “For our products, its mostly nursing wear. After they give birth, moms usually stay home, so it’s much comfortable if they do online shopping,” she shares.

In tune with Multiply’s social shopping goals, these two have been friends with their consumers. Like how Mamaway has its own corner for clients. “We just don’t sell breast feeding clothes, we help moms, and coordinate them to classes with breast feeding organizations where they can learn from them. We build rapport with the clients. It’s not just you buy from me,” says Jonnie.


“Online shopping would save a lot of time to a lot of people, since you can do a lot of things online, you can attend to a lot of important things in your everyday life if you shop online,” Suyen says. “It is easier, since some people have no time to go to stores and malls, so they browse everything online and when they have decided to order they just pay for it and we ship it, the next day, it’s usually with them already.”

With Multiply’s revamp into a social shopping site, shopping 24/7 get a lot easier. Shopaholics would certainly reboot their accounts in to this networking site.

3 comments:

Henry said...

You have a useful and helpful info posted here, I'll try to create a multiply acct later.

Henry said...

I haven't visit my multiply acct and I already forgot my multiply login. Thanks for this post and for highlighting multiply, I'll definitely create an acct again.

anae said...

nice to know i could help you. :)