Filipinos are most important market for e-commerce portal

Peter Pezaris, Multiply co-founder

If it weren’t for Filipinos who used this former social networking site to buy and sell things—despite the company itself shaking its head in disapproval—it wouldn’t have become the “biggest digital mall” it is today.

Seven years after its launch, Multiply (where netizens can share photos and videos to families and friends), reintroduced itself as a full-fledged e-commerce portal with the Philippines as its most important market.

Today, it aims to provide a world-class online shopping experience to its more than 5.4 million users (200,000 of whom access the site on a daily basis) in the country.

“That sense of sharing and family that Filipinos have has helped Multiply grow rapidly as both buyers and sellers continue to embrace social commerce,” said Peter Pezaris, Multiply CEO and Founder.

“We see tremendous business potential for Multiply in the Philippines given the size of our community here. It is our largest and fastest growing market, with over 2,000 new merchants coming online each month,” he said.

Pezaris was in town recently to formally open the company’s Philippine office, which he said is a testament to the company’s commitment to the local market.

Jack Madrid, Multiply country manager

“This is a new chapter for Multiply. From just four members at the beginning of this year, our office grew to 38 employees since we set up our office in February. We are off to a good start and we look forward to growing our community of merchants and shoppers in the coming years. We are here for the long term,” said Jack Madrid, country manager of Multiply Philippines.

The Philippine office is only one of two outside the USA (Multiply has offices in New York and Florida).

According to Madrid, Filipino users make up half of the Multiply users all over the world. To date, there are over 90,000 merchants online with over a million products for sale. At the rate they’re going, they could easily hit the target 100,000 online stores before the year ends.

Since the shift to e-commerce in May, there have been more than 1,000 transactions (and counting) through the website.

“I seriously did not expect we’d get this big here in the Philippines but I’m glad we did,” Pezaris said. “It’s so nice to finally have a home here after just coming back and forth for seven years.”

The success of this platform, Madrid said, would determine if Multiply is to also shift its focus (from social networking site to e-commerce) in other countries. So far, it is only the Philippines and Indonesia (with 40,000 online merchants) where Multiply has aggressively promoted itself as a digital mall.

Pezaris said: “We’re here for the long haul. It was entirely because of the Filipinos that Multiply switched to e-commerce and because of this I believe we have a very bright future here with this format.”

To get started on your very own business or on hunting for the best deals, visit http://multiply.com/.

*** Read the full article at the Philippine Daily Inquirer on August 12, 2011 (Friday). Thanks! ***