The 7th Digital Filipino E-Commerce Summit or the E-Commerce Entrepreneurs Summit was held on August 29, 2015 at the Ballroom of the Best Western Plus Antel Hotel in Makati City. With this year’s theme as E-commerce for Economic Growth, the country’s leading e-commerce practitioners shared their insights and strategies on building and growing e-commerce businesses.
Numbers from i-Metrics Asia Pacific show that a significant number of transactions in the Philippines are now done online: 28% of Filipino Internet users’ purchases are done electronically, with 22% making online payments.
E-commerce Start-up Presentation
Towards the end of the summit, participants of Digital Filipino’s Certified E-Commerce Specialist, Entrepreneur, and Professional Program presented their e-commerce start-up projects:
Tagay.ph – Tagay.PH is an online marketplace for all your alcoholic drinks and liquor needs. Its owner, Mark Joseph Panganiban envisions a community of drinkers coming together online to swap stories of drinking experiences and plan their next “inuman” sessions.
Crusade Hero – Crusade Hero provides a platform “to find missing loved ones”. It’s for “people searching for answers, truth and closures,” turning “problems into great stories to solve issues concerning self actualization.”
Karpintero.ph – Connecting homeowners to quality and reliable construction service providers, Karpintero.ph serves as a platform where construction service providers can bid on homeowners’ construction, repair, and renovation requirements.
Bazaro.com.ph, an online marketplace for grocers and buyers, is also part of Digital Filipino’s E-commerce training program.
Personal Insights
The summit has shown that our country is not lacking in entrepreneurs with great ideas for e-commerce businesses, eager to contribute to the country’s economic growth. There are many existing e-commerce businesses who are able to take advantage of technological innovations to compete with big businesses not just in the local scene but also in the international business arena.
There’s a whole new ecosystem to learn and implement if one is to fully embrace e-commerce as a business model. Knowing the ins and outs of the digital infrastructure can be technical and complicated, but I believe that there are many mentors out there willing to help e-commerce start-ups.
Much has to be done in terms of building a reliable and secure digital infrastructure from which e-commerce businesses can be developed. Telecom service providers need to improve their services. Internet connectivity in the country is a big joke. Logistics companies can still improve their service security and reliability. Also, we need more businesses like LoanPinas to provide additional capital and support for these start-ups.
E-commerce in the Philippines is still in its infancy stage, and there’s still a lot that needs to be done by practitioners and stakeholders to spread the gospel of e-commerce to more Filipinos here and abroad. Empowering more Filipinos to create e-commerce businesses will drive the engine of economic growth in the Philippines.
The E-Commerce Entrepreneurs Summit was organized by Digital Filipino headed by Janette Toral.
Special thanks to Sherlane Fortunado of RaketHub.com for her inputs in this post.
Photo break time at the summit. Photo credit: Rochefel Rivera of ProfessionalVAs.com
