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The tastes of the Last Frontier

By Zsarlene Chua

PALAWAN — often called the Philippines’ “Last Frontier” as the province still maintains more than 50% of its original forest cover and is home to more than a hundred threatened species according to conservation.org — also boasts of a little-known culinary tradition rooted in the bounty of nature and the fusion cuisine that formed when Puerto Princesa, its capital, became the home of Vietnamese refugees.

Thai e-retailer iTrueMart spending $150 million on Southeast Asia plans

THAI online retailer iTrueMart says the Philippnes is only the first stop on the company’s $150-million expansion plan, which will cover much of Southeast Asia into 2016.

“From 2015, we already invested $4.5 million, and that’s just for the end of the year. We have announced an investment of $150 million for our expansion next year. What that means is that since the Philippines is the first [new] market in the [region]… a big part of that investment will be going to the Philippines. At this stage, [we’re earmarking] $50 million for 2016,” Dean Krstevski, regional COO of e-commerce, Ascend Group (under which iTrueMart is a business unit), said during the Nov. 24 launch at the Discovery Primea in Makati City.

The $150-million investment is said to be set for “e-commerce-optimized fulfillment centers, logistics hubs, expansion of the feel, marketing, and ramping up assortment and inventory,” according to a company press release.

Mr. Krstevski had said in the press release that there was still plenty of opportunity for new players in Philippine e-commerce.

The online business-to-consumer platform, whose Philippine Web site was launched a week before the event in Makati City, carries mobile and electronic merchandise, much of it from local players such as Cherry Mobile. Mr. Krstevski told BusinessWorld on the sidelines of the Nov. 24 launch that the site currently has 600-700 products, and “by the end the end of the year, we’re looking at a minimum of 2,000 products,” mostly from the same category (gadgets and electronics), while they plan to expand to other categories (such as mom-and-kids’ merchandise) starting January.

Mr. Krstevski also noted that iTrueMart found local mobile phone brands popular in the Philippines, hence the number of items offered from said brands.

In Thailand, smartphones and gadgets account for 70% of total sales, according to the press release. The company reported 4.6 million visits per month in its home country and a sales conversion rate of 4.20%, compared with an industry average of 2%.

“iTrueMart started in 2013… In the beginning, in Thailand, we only had about 400 orders a day, and now we get up to 17,000 orders per day. And we want to replicate that success in the Philippines. We know that with the market readiness — the characteristic of the shoppers here — we will absolutely get there,” said Punnamas Vichitkulwongsa, CEO of Ascend Group and TrueMoney.

Mr. Punnamas added that the company is introducing alternative payment options such as TrueMoney, Ascend Group’s online payment brand, which will function much like a PayPal account. Payment can also be done in convenience stores, as the company has partnered with the Massachusetts-based payment organization, RocketPay.

Aside from iTrueMart, the group will also be introducing WeLoveShopping — Thailand’s “first and largest” e-commerce marketplace — in the near future.

After the Philippines, iTrueMart is set to expand into Vietnam, Indonesia, Myanmar, Cambodia, Malaysia next year. — Zsarlene B. Chua

Opportunities to Cross-Sell

Getting the Edge in Professional Selling
By Terence A. Hockenhull

WHEN your company sells limited product lines, it is a simple matter to allow the sales team to sell the full range to the customer base. However, larger companies that carry hundreds of different items will often task individuals to sell specific lines or products.

Tide leaves demo for AlDub dance

ADS & ENDS
NANETTE FRANCO-DIYCO

THIS BRAND is definitely one of the market leaders in laundry detergents and perhaps the longest known in the country. This advertisement has one simple objective: announce a price cut.

Julia Roberts is a paler pretty woman in Secret in Their Eyes

By Angela Dawson

HOLLYWOOD — Pretty Woman Julia Roberts tackles the role of a woman haunted by the brutal murder of her teenage daughter in the crime thriller Secret in Their Eyes.

In retail slump, HK jeweler lets clients try before they buy

HONG KONG — Online luxury jeweler Plukka is going door-to-door to beat the worst retail downturn in more than a decade in Hong Kong, where some of the world’s most expensive commercial rents and plunging sales are corroding earnings of much larger rivals.

A shop assistant works at Plukka Store in Hong Kong, China November 30, 2015. Online luxury jeweller Plukka is going door-to-door to beat the worst retail downturn in more than a decade in Hong Kong, where some of the world's most expensive commercial rents and plunging sales are corroding earnings of much larger rivals. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu

The start-up, which aims to go public in Australia on Friday via a A$10-million ($7-million) back-door listing, has taken a leaf from video-on-demand service Netflix, Inc. and cosmetics company Avon Products, Inc., offering customers to try before they buy.

This service, launched in Hong Kong and New York last month, could potentially shield Plukka from the blues besetting bricks-and-mortar luxury retailers, its founder and creative director Joanne Ooi told Reuters, as their main customers — cash-rich Chinese tourists — avoid shopping in Hong Kong, put off by a weaker yuan and the Beijing government’s crackdown on corruption which has also targeted conspicuous spending.

“We saw that the reaction of consumers to jewelry in person was completely different to online,” Ms. Ooi added. “The logical evolution of that phenomenon is how you can give the consumer the opportunity to see the jewelry before they buy it.”

Earlier this year, Coach, Inc. closed its flagship store in Hong Kong while Chow Tai Fook, China’s largest jewelry retailer by sales and which competes with Cartier and Tiffany & Co., last week reported a 42% drop in first-half profit, its biggest half-yearly decline since it listed in December 2011.

Plukka’s customers choose products online and then book a 45-minute viewing at their home or office for a charge, which is waived with any purchase. The company, which launched in 2011, said the proceeds of its IPO will go towards global expansion. It currently has one physical store in Hong Kong and plans to open another in London next year.

Deborah Weinswig, head of global retail and technology at Fung Business Intelligence Centre, said Plukka’s combination of online and physical shopping could be a game-changer for the jewelry sector.

Other analysts, however, said the service was a gimmick.

“It will take time to prove the business model, and it will take time to educate customers about this new approach,” said Walter Woo, an analyst at Oriental Patron Financial. — Reuters

Deadwood: Guns, Goons, Gold, and Genius

The Binge
Jessica Zafra

“Pain and damage don’t end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you’re dead. Until then you’ve got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man and give some back.” — Al Swearengen

Have diabetes, hypertension, or lung disease? Get a pneumonia vaccination

SMOKERS and people with chronic respiratory illness, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases have a greater risk of catching pneumonia.

More than a guessing game

By Richard Roeper

WHEN JULIA ROBERTS’ Jess is told by a friend, “You look like you’re a million years old” in Secret in Their Eyes, there’s not a speck of insult in the observation.

Whales under threat as climate change impacts migration

PUERTO LOPEZ, ECUADOR — The sight of thousands of whales surfacing, jumping and playing off the coast of South America as they migrate toward their breeding grounds is one of nature’s most majestic displays.

I believe I can fly: Victor Maguad on becoming Peter Pan

By Jasmine Agnes T. Cruz

BALLET
Peter Pan
Presented by Ballet Philippines
Dec. 4 to 1

Women should worry more about heart disease

“It’s not just breast cancer that kills women,” said Dr. Maria Adelaida Iboleon-Dy, chairman of the cardiology department at St. Luke’s Medical Center in Quezon city.