For MSMEs and side-hustle online sellers, setting up an online store is still quite daunting, but emerging entrepreneur and multi-hyphenate Nadine Lustre 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 shared following the successful launch of nadinelustre.store in December, she also recently relaunched betty-blooms.com using Shopboxo in February.
Shopboxo is a forever free online platform that allows MSMEs to build online stores using designer crafted templates in literally a matter of minutes, even with little or no technical know-how. Store owners can showcase their brands and products, accept online payments, and arrange delivery, all from the convenience of a smartphone app or a web interface. Stores can be built in literally minutes, and are ready to accept every major method of online payment seamlessly in a matter of days. On the customer side, it provides an experience that is just as convenient as any well-known online store or market.
According to data from the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, while the number of registered MSMEs dropped from 995,745 from 2019 to 2020, it bounced back in 2021 to 1,072,122. Meanwhile, In October of last year, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) estimated that there are well over 2,000,000 online sellers in the Philippines, far more than their previous forecast of 750,000 by the end of that year. This also translated to a dramatic increase in the volume of online transactions: According to GlobalData’s E-Commerce Analytics, e-commerce transaction value in the Philippines in 2021 was P264.5 billion, an increase of 15.1 percent relative to 2020.
With the abrupt change in economic and logistical conditions that the pandemic brought about, many Filipinos turned to online selling as a way to boost or even replace their income. Online sellers who could afford to, turned to online big e-commerce platforms to move their goods. A select few set up fully functional online stores, but the many who couldn’t do either resorted to selling their goods on social media platforms. In general though, big platforms charge increasingly hefty commissions as sales volumes increase, this ultimately limits a seller’s growth potential. Developing a fully functional standalone site on the other hand is too complicated and costly for most.
The smallest players, who were the majority in number if not in sales, turned to selling goods on social media. This solution has proven problematic for many reasons. Any given customer of these sellers deals and coordinates with a vendor, a payment service, and a delivery service on three separate apps with every transaction, the inconvenience turns a lot of customers off, particularly security-conscious ones.
On the merchant side, the seller needs to interact with each customer personally and log each order manually. Messages that aren’t responded to are lost opportunities. As businesses scale up, this presents all kinds of problems from necessitating additional manpower to order tracking and inventory management. E-wallets are the payment method of choice for these sellers and there are problems such as daily limits on peer-to-peer e-wallet transfers. These independently moving parts make it either impossible to scale up, or disastrous to even try.
Fast forward to 2023, consumers know the convenience that e-commerce offers, the toothpaste is out of the tube and online sellers are here to stay. But for online sellers to continue to have an edge, they need to adopt smarter and more cost-efficient solutions.
Why Nadine’s Solution Works
Nadine Lustre has found her solution, she now has 2 out of 70,000 Shopboxo powered stores. These 70,000 stores cut across a wide range of industries from fashion, F&B and beauty all over the regions. They went online within 9 months of Shopboxo’s launch. “Feedback from our merchants is that they increase their revenue by up to 30% after launching their online stores on Shopboxo,” says Shopboxo CEO Kaniyet Rayev. “Merchants can reduce time spent on operations of their stores by 50% with Shopboxo Order, Inventory and Product Management,” he adds.
Funded among others globally by Google’s Gradient Ventures, Shopboxo already has strong local partnerships, notably with leading local e-wallet GCash. Shopboxo is also partnered with logistics providers such as Ninja Van, Lalamove and GrabExpress.
Customers of Shopboxo built stores can pay with all the leading e-wallets, and major credit or debit cards, then arrange for delivery all without leaving the store of the Shopboxo client merchant.
“Being able to easily create and use a website is perfect for MSMEs like us,” shares Shopboxo merchant Justin Ang, co-founder of Dear Pets, a premium pet lifestyle store. “With more time to focus on operations and our customers, we saw a 34% increase in sales and a 22% increase in basket value within the first two weeks of using Shopboxo,” he adds.
Far from being just for online businesses, Shopboxo has a great toolkit to digitally enable and elevate even brick and mortar establishments like restaurants as well. QR enabled online menus, and a scan to order and pay that gives the convenience of ordering and paying without having to hail a waiter. There is also a pickup function that allows restaurant regulars or customers who find the restaurant on Google Maps to easily order and pay before they arrive and pick up the order.
“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,” says Rayev.
To learn more about Shopboxo, or to set up your own online store in just minutes, go to https://shopboxo.io/ or download the Shopboxo app from the Playstore and Appstore and become an instant online entrepreneur.
