Thursday, December 14, 2006 Toral: Christmas shopping online By Janette Toral Digital Filipino
LIKE many Filipinos, preparing a gift list is one important activity for this holiday season. Pressure is high, especially for those who participate in family reunions.
As I was preparing to hit the mall for Christmas shopping with my sister, the idea of checking out available items from three websites came to mind. And so we found the products that we wanted. No need to go to the mall anymore!
First stop is Joan Pinon’s MyLittleBaker.com. Joan actively participates in a lot of my forum activities. She was doing product taste sampling for quite sometime now. When she announced her website, we cheered her for this accomplishment. Definitely, this is a good start for her. I ended up ordering fruitcake online.
Second stop is Reggie Bundang’s RegaloService.com. The first item that I ordered from her website is an author’s Avenue leather-bound journal, as a gift for myself. Her Christmas shopping list is sorted from the most affordable to expensive items. I finally found three kinds of Christmas ham that are priced competitively and ordered those.
Third stop is Jovel Cipriano’s Pinoy Delikasi.com. Actually, my first time to order Christmas gifts online is through this website a few years back. I ordered then several bottles of mango wine, basi and lambanog. This year, I will be getting the same items.
The nice thing about these websites is that orders are made by phone call and through e-mail. Their prices are pretty much reasonable that the effort, travel time and hassle saved are well worth it.
From these three websites, I learned these lessons that website creators can reflect on:
l Share your story. MyLittleBaker.com’s home page gives a glimpse of Joan’s adventure in baking. It provided a personal touch or story about the whole website. I find it very personal and engaging.
l Cater to brand- and price-conscious buyers. RegaloService.com’s website shows products according to category and brand. This makes shopping very easy and appealing to a particular segment of users. In her Christmas gift suggestions, she also presented her products from cheapest to most expensive items.
l Offer novelty. PinoyDelikasi.com’s products are all Philippine-made and have a certain novelty to them. The website offers gift items that are very unique and personal.
l Helping victims of disaster. I think no Filipino should allow this Christmas to pass without sharing one’s self and resources to victims of tragedy. You can either give to charity institutions or at the simplest, to your household help who may have relatives in that area that need assistance.
