Some things here sound familiar with Malaysian and Singaporean blogshops:
1. This store is run by a young adult, a female about college age.
2. The store is on the Multiply site (a type of social media), which offers FREE HOSTING. There is no shopping cart but they do manual processing of orders and payment is via bank transfers (looks like a blogshop!)... for some reason, Multiple looks to be a popular option for Filipino online boutique owners (see more examples at the bottom of this post)
3. It has a Facebook page which serves as a marketing tool, although no sales occur here.
4. The owner has added a brick store.
5. The business leverages multiple channels and contact points- blog, Multiply site, main store, Tumblr, Plurk Facebook, etc.
I think we see a common theme here in that these are YOUNG WOMEN who are leveraging all kinds of social media to set up fashion businesses.
In Malaysia, blogs and Facebook are huge, so are Lelong, eBay and Lowyat. In Singapore, blogs are the main outlets, while in the Philippines, Multiply seems to be big.
So the choice of these channels are probably due to contextualization factors.
The online store: http://stylebreak.multiply.com/
The Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stylebreak/111268595563694?v=info
News article about Style Break
http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/280931/online-stores-are-seeing-wisdom-bricks-and-mortar
Online Stores are Seeing the Wisdom of Bricks and Mortar
OFFLINE SHOPPING
By LIZ ANNE BAUTISTA
October 7, 2010, 2:51pm
Online shopping can be tricky business, not just for the entrepreneurs, but especially for the consumers. Of course, not every transaction is a disaster, but although convenient for the most part, there is however the possibility of going through a few of the following hassles: the items don’t fit, the items don’t look as nice as they were on the photo, or, at the very worst, the items just don’t arrive at all. Some stores have come and gone, but there are some good ones who seem to thrive and, amazingly, evolve.StyleBreak has been one of the online boutiques that have done well. Through its trendy, affordable, and limited pieces, as well as its reliability in its transactions, the store has built a cult following from the young crowd, celebrities, and fashion industry regulars.
Last year, the Manila Bulletin interviewed one of the owners, Laureen Uy, youngest sister to Preview magazine’s Liz and Vince, about her then up-and-coming online store. Still in college at that time, Uy mentioned that they had no plans of opening a boutique. Recently, though, we’ve met up with the young and stylish entrepreneur at StyleBreak’s new showroom in Eastwood, something the owners Uy and Katina Loring have opened as a supplement to their online boutique.
Manila Bulletin: What made you decide to open a showroom? I remember last year you mentioned that you have no plans of putting up a physical boutique. What has changed?
Laureen Uy: Well, we don’t want a drastic change like putting up a store right away, but everyone was asking if we had a store that they can visit to try on our clothes. Of course it’s hard to know the sizes if you only have an online store, right? So, we thought putting up a small showroom would be the best for now. Now, it’s super convenient for everyone.
MB: Do you think that putting up a showroom in support of your online boutique helped the business in one way or another?
LU: Definitely. Rather than shipping the items via Fedex, more people prefer to just visit our showroom and try on stuff. And they usually end up buying more! For example, one customer likes only one item, goes to our showroom, and buys five items instead!
MB: Except for the showroom, how is StyleBreak different then from now? Do you have people now helping you out? Or is it still you and Katrina taking care of everything?
LU: Before it used to be really just me and my business partner doing all the work. Now, we have a supplier. Of course, we still design and make the clothes, but since were trying to expand, we have more items available now. What’s good about StyleBreak, though, is that we only make limited pieces per item, so that you won’t go walking around the mall thinking you’ll bump into a girl wearing the same thing.
MB: What can we expect next from StyleBreak?
LU: Our next collection will be the bomb! Just wait for it!
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Other Filipino online boutiques on Multiply:
http://redzville.multiply.com/
http://parnellaboutique.multiply.com/photos/album/174/Payment_Mode
http://mlafashionsupplies.multiply.com/
http://ukaymanilastore.multiply.com/
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Some info about the popularity of Multiply in the Philippines:
Multiply is a top 5 site in the Philippines, and 39% of Multiply's traffic comes from the Philippines. Over 3.5 million Filipinos are on Multiply out of the 12 million or so users.
From Techcrunch: http://techcrunch.com/2007/11/07/multiply-big-in-the-philippines-lands-ad-deal/
Nick GonzalezNov 7, 2007
Multiply
has been growing rather quietly internationally. The social media aggregator now has 7 million registered users and 10.5 million monthly unique visitors according to their internal numbers, nearly triple their 2006 traffic. Comscore’s most recent numbers show 12.5 million uniques for September.The service acts like a meta social network where users can collect and share content from multiple social sites (photos, video, blogs). See our earlier comparison with Vox. Users post 1.25 million photos, 16,000 videos and 55,000 blog entries daily. However, while the U.S. is home to the largest share of their registered users, most of their traffic is international.
The Philippines is one of the most pronounced examples of their large international following. Alexa ranks Multiply as the 5th largest site in the Philippines – with more than 2 million unique monthly visitors. We had earlier reported that 39% of the site’s traffic comes from the Philippines. Therefore it’s no surprise that they’ve managed to land a multi-year ad deal with one of the Philippine’s largest networks, ABS-CBN. ABS-CBN has 67 televisions stations, 19 radio stations, 30 websites and reaches 97% of the Filipinos with televisions. Under terms of the agreement, ABS-CBN interactive will sell advertising and mobile services for Multiply’s Filipino users, with the two companies sharing revenues.
The deal highlights the importance of international markets U.S. press often take for granted. Sites like Friendster and Orkut have found large international followings while their U.S. markets are dormant. With a global internet, foreign markets are expected to become even more important in the future. According to research firm Datamonitor Plc., by the end of this year, Asia will account for 35% of the world’s social networking users, with 28% of users in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, 25% in North America, and 12% in the Caribbean and Latin America. Once again, startups concerned about getting big may want to get international.
while their U.S. markets are dormant. With a global internet, foreign markets are expected to become even more important in the future. According to research firm Datamonitor Plc., by the end of this year, Asia will account for 35% of the world’s social networking users, with 28% of users in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, 25% in North America, and 12% in the Caribbean and Latin America. Once again, startups concerned about getting big may want to get international.Online social networking? Name it and chances are Filipinos are in it, and Multiply is no exception.
In fact, according to Multiply founder Peter Pezaris, out of Multiply’s 12.5 million subscribers worldwide, 3.5 million are based in the Philippines. He said that the Philippines is the second largest market for Multiply in the world, next to the United States.
For this reason, tech whizzes from Boca Raton, Florida, thought it is a good idea to make the Philippine a key market for social networking and content sharing site Multiply. They have already set up an office in Manila and is working to further beef up its presence in the country as it enters into a partnership with ABS-CBN Interactive.
For this reason, tech whizzes from Boca Raton, Florida, thought it is a good idea to make the Philippine a key market for social networking and content sharing site Multiply. They have already set up an office in Manila and is working to further beef up its presence in the country as it enters into a partnership with ABS-CBN Interactive.
“We’re working more closely with ABS-CBN and we’re setting up a Manila presence. We’re also ramping up promotions for Multiply Mobile, which will now feature an MMS posting capability,� Pezaris said.
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