The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
By Jerry Maglunog
Online business caters mostly to people who are very busy or live too far from the city proper. It is in these scenarios that the likes of Lazada, Zalora, Carmudi, OLX or Autopinoy.com have become a household name.
For the Philippines, online business booms because of the big market coupled with people seeking to avoid the horrendous daily city traffic when they go out of their homes to buy their choices for bags, shoes, shorts, slippers and even lipstick.
This business has become more popular because its true and customers need not to spend time going to the mall, queue in counters or get stuck on traffic for hours.
Subir Lohani, managing director of Carmudi, said the trend where people can buy anything they want without leaving will continue to thrive given that traffic and lack of public transport vehicles are expected to worsen. “People would rather stay for hours browsing the net than go out and brave hot sun or get themselves in the middle of traffic mess,” Lohani, a Nepalese, said.
He said being a tech savvy nation, the Philippines is haven for online shopping/trading. The surge in cellphone users, according to Lohani, in recent years only proves that a lot of Filipinos spend more time browsing the net via their cell phones than actually go to mall to choose their favorite clothes.
Globe and Touch Mobile have 47 million subscribers while Smart and Sun have 68 million, for a total of 115 million. The Philippines has 100 million population. The Carmudi executive said the rate of increasing cell phone users is faster than the rate of population. “That’s why many online business are now here people can enjoy it anytime they want, no limit after all,” he added.
He added that their business alone contains 20,000 listings of cars and other vehicles readily available. He called the business as very timely that people who want to go out of their homes or offices need not to do that and instead just look at their favorite online store. For Carmudi, he said the online car platform has the widest array of vehicles from the latest models to as far as the 60s.
Unlike other online stores, theirs is solely dedicated to cars, vans and motorcycles and not anything under the sun like the other mentioned businesses. “Those listed to us look expensive but when the seller and buyer meet the price most of time becomes bargain,” he said.
Among the things that are sold online, he said that cars and vans are the most sought after given the huge part of the population that aim to own a car whether brand new or previously used. “The traffic that you see in many major roads like Edsa is a clear indication that a lot of people want car, not house or own business,” the official said. An average Filipino, according to studies, has the capacity to own at least three vehicles in his or her lifetime.
That timeframe, given that one-fourth of population has this thinking, is equivalent to 25 million vehicles or all classifications. At the moment, Lohani said, there are six million vehicles plying in all cities and municipalities in the Philippines. Compared to the Philippine population, the six million don’t even reach 10 percent of 100 million.