Tuesday, March 20, 2007 | MANILA, PHILIPPINES
News
Davao’s online marketplace goes from virtual to physical
Davao City — An online advertising and marketplace company based here is establishing a business center that will serve as lounge for its 11,000 members, and small and medium entrepreneurs who want to gain access to wider markets.
Mary Jane Dionela, davaosale.com marketing manager, said the company decided to set up the business center to "establish credibility" among its members whose number has kept on growing.
"It will also serve as hub and a place for friends," said Ms. Dionela, whose Web site has nine million page viewers every month.
She added that members can visit the lounge and make friends, or work there because it has five computers and a coffee shop. The company also has an Internet cafe near the lounge where online gamers can play. In the past, she said, some members who made inquiries on the location of the company. But since the company was operating virtually, or online, there was no physical place identified as its center.
"We want to tell our members, who are also our clients, that we have a place of our own," said Ms. Dionela, who first spent seven years working in nongovernment organization before joining the company last December. She added that the company wants to maximize its exposure to advertisers as Web site advertising has slowly gained prominence in the city.
She added that company officials also decided to put up the business center because of the positive revenues that it got from users and other visitors. Ms. Dionela said she hopes that with the new business center, the company would continue the primary buy-and-sell portal as it has become even one of the most recognized portals in the country.
The three-year-old company has been serving the city by allowing individuals to post their products for free. However, premium members, or those who can post their products complete with pictures and which are posted in the most conspicuous places within the Web site, are asked to pay a minimum amount.
The portal was set up to "help buyers and sellers easily find, compare, buy, sell and advertise anything online — in less time, for the best price without the high cost of creating and running their own Web site," she added.
Primarily with a Web site as the buy-and-sell portal in the city, the company’s mission is also to help small and medium entrepreneurs in the city find markets for their products. — Carmelito Q. Francisco
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