IF there’s one positive benefit that the Covid-19 pandemic brought to Cebuanos, it is the collective effort of looking after each other’s needs in this time of enhanced community quarantine (ECQ).
Entrepreneurs who belonged to the food industry have created online marketplaces in Facebook to link sellers directly to the buyers. The online shopping space serves as an advertising and selling platform for struggling entrepreneurs affected by the ECQ while for buyers, it’s a convenient avenue to look for items they badly need without leaving their homes.
Beatrice Montenegro, one of the administrators of the Banilad Homemade Marketplace, is grateful for the high engagement that the page has been getting. She said that in a short span of time, a community was created supporting each other during this depressing time.
“I’ve been getting great feedback. I’ve met people on the road when I walk in the afternoon thanking me for making the group. They tell me what they bought and who they bought it from. I’ve also been getting positive messages from other members as well,” she said.
Together with her aunt, Maricita Cancio, they created the online page after they saw the high demand for food after Cebu Province was placed under community quarantine and later on under ECQ. These measures, which pushed businesses to temporarily halt operations and people to stay and work at home, have disrupted the flow of goods.
Montenegro, an architect, wasn’t spared. She said they had to close their design studio temporarily. “Almost all our construction projects had to stop completely because we wanted to keep everyone at site and our staff safe. So with that, I am spending more time at home,” she said.
To stay productive at home, Montenegro revived the homemade ensaymada business she had back in college. She turned to Facebook to advertise and sell them.
“We have been getting more orders because people have been staying at home. Business is better than in the Christmas season, which is usually the busiest part of the year,” she said.
Banilad Homemade Marketplace, which has 8,467 members, sells mostly food-related products from authentic Spanish cuisine to fresh produce from farms across the island.
Another online marketplace Let’s Eat Bai is getting high traffic online.
The page, which was created in 2017, was revived by JP Chiongbian this year after he saw the need for local suppliers and sellers to come together, especially at a time like this.
“When the quarantine was first implemented on March 16, I jumpstarted the page again by helping a few suppliers from which I got food items and posted it in Let’s Eat Bai. These products—eggs, vegetables, meats and even ngohiong— were the first ones launched during the start of the quarantine, and also during that time we had less than 10 online sellers,” he said.
Now, the group has over 200 sellers. Its membership base also grew from 5,000 to over 35,000 and counting.
Chiongbian compiled a directory of all the online sellers at that time which was around 60 and categorized them into groceries, meat and poultry, vegetables, seafood and desserts to help everyone who is at home to have access.
The weekly updated directory now has been shared a lot and has been used by consumers.
The group, according to Chiongbian, is now in the process of making a new platform to organize both online sellers and consumers with partnerships from industry leaders for cashless transactions and seamless delivery services.
“I believe that even after this situation we all face, we can still sustain this community and create a new breed of entrepreneurs,” said Chiongbian, who is also one of the founders of Sugbo Mercado.
He said majority of the online sellers are homebased online entrepreneurs, restaurants helping their employees, farm to market sellers, stall owners from Carbon and Pasil markets, online groceries and personal shoppers, manufacturers and exporters.