Grab amazing discounts with BigBenta.com's SUMMER SALE!

Grab amazing discounts with BigBenta.com's SUMMER SALE! Browse the selection of great fashion, footwear, bags and bikes sale in BigBenta's Online Stores! Shop Now!

Dream big! Achieve bigger! Be the Best!

Are you an enterprising Filipino who wants to buy and sell and earn on your free time?
Or a skilled individual or service provider who wants to increase your bookings?
Or a merchant who wants to own an online store and increase sales?

Come and join The Biggest and #1 Online Marketplace in the Philippines, BigBenta.com.
The one and only online Marketplace tailored to cater to all segments of the E-commerce industry in the country.

Home of the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). BigBenta.com created four platforms each of which caters to a specific market segment of the online community.

Post Ads for Free in BigBenta.com's Classified Ads

BigBenta.com launched its Classified Ads Service for all enterprising Filipino and provides an avenue where they can post for free, without limit and expiry. More ad exposure means profit for all our BigBenta Classifieds ads members .

Hassle-free Online Shopping in BigBenta.com/stores

March 2016, BigBenta.com launched its online store the “BigBenta Store”.  At present the BigBenta Store is home to almost 300 hundred merchants.  The annual A&V (Authentication and Verification Process) of the Online Store Members ensures the protection of all buyers and ensuring that they get quality service.
The Store Owners on the other hand have access to online data analytics like buyers' profile, the most searched and popular products.  All of which is vital in ensuring stocks availability, price competitiveness and target market analysis.

BigBenta Store empowers the Merchants or Storeowners to create their own online store based on their preferences on what items to sell, displaying varieties in color & sizes, managing inventory levels, pricing, launching promotions, choosing payment methods, and enhancing customer management, report management and many more!  Useful features like chat, abandoned cart management, customer survey, and complaint management are all designed to put the storeowners in control of their own stores.

Find the services you need in services.bigbenta.com

BigBenta.com also launched Service Bookings recently.

BigBenta Service Bookings allows any skilled individual or Service Provider to directly offer their services whether they are blue collar in nature like plumbers, electrician, masseuse, beauticians, etc. while professional services like bookkeeping, accountancy, events management and a whole lot more can also use the site to secure more clients.

COMING SOON!

The fourth and last platform that completes BigBenta.com Marketplace is BigBenta Prime. The ambitious and promising BigBenta Prime caters to real estate buyers and investors.  It gives the customers full view of the property, details and prices to make an informed decision without having to deal with the pressure from persistent Marketing Agents.

BigBenta Prime boasts of unique features like its  view of all properties, recreational amenities, points of interests like nearby commercial, social, and other vital institutions like hospitals, schools, police stations, fire stations, banks, and others.

The BigBenta.com Marketplace houses its various platforms – CLASSIFIED ADS, ONLINE STORES, SERVICES, AND NOW PRIME - in one site, designed to respond to the needs of Filipino customers and entrepreneurs real time.

A Filipino-company made for the Filipinos, by the Filipinos.
Join the BigBenta Community now!!

Dream big!!

Achieve bigger!!!

Be the Best!!!

Login to Bigbenta.com

Photo Source:
Serious man thinking Free Photo By asierromero / Freepik 

Original Paintings of Filipino Artists, now available in BigBenta.com!

Caia Natine is an art shop that provides good quality art prints, framed art and wall art for both residential and commercial settings.

We have oil paintings, acrylic and mixed media works as well as a wide variety of high end frames that can transform ordinary living or work spaces into well-springs of aesthetic inspiration!

Art collectors,interior designers and people with an eye for good quality visuals are just some of  our clientele although anyone who believes that "a thing of beauty is a joy forever" can be easily captivated by our stunning artworks and superior craftsmanship!

All these beautiful paintings of filipino artists are available online at bigbenta.com. We can deliver anywhere in the Philippines. BigBenta Marketplace is a total e-commerce solution for Filipino.

Through these platforms, it aims to help the Filipino entrepreneur and MSMEs use the internet to grow their business

Grassroots Digital Entrepreneurship (Part 2): Neighborhood Fruits & Vegetables Online

To continue with my article on the emerging Grassroots Digital Entrepreneurship published last week. I am happy that no more than a week after writing it, our online marketplace www.bigbenta.com received several fruits and vegetables inquiries from sellers in a nearby wet market in Paranaque. I personally think that we are penetrating the grassroots level now, which is both surprising and very encouraging. Critics might say that there is nothing new with the online purchase of fruits or vegetables as some countries and other markets are currently doing this. In other markets or countries, YES, I totally agree, but here in the Philippines, this is quite rare. To think that the supplies of the fruits and vegetables are not coming from big grocery stores or supermarket chains, but from your average and humble neighborhood fruits and vegetables stalls found only in wet markets.

Stall in Paranaque Wet Market. The first to adopt grassroots digital entrepreneurship.

We faced new challenges in regard to delivering perishable products. Challenges like ensuring freshness and product availability, proper handling, keeping delivery costs to a minimum, and even coming up with an acceptable payment for merchants. The good thing is that both the merchant and BigBenta.com were able to come to an agreement that addresses all these issues to ensure that the customers are provided with an online alternative to have their fruits and vegetables delivered to their preferred location.

Palengke Items in BigBenta.com sells LPG gas, rice, and fruits. Customers no longer need to visit a wet market for these items but enjoy the convenience of ordering -  ONLINE!

Still, some questions still hang in my head. Is this the start of a trend (grassroots digital entrepreneurship) or just a nice coincidence? From the time I wrote about the rice and cooking gas sellers some two weeks ago, BigBenta.com has been busy entertaining more than a dozen similar sellers across the different areas of Metro Manila. Surprisingly, the first two customers who purchased their cooking gas were from the Middle East who wanted to order the commodity for their family back home. The two husbands ordered and paid for their orders online.

I think I will be able to get my answer in the next couple of months whether the trend is hear to stay or not. One thing is certain, digital entrepreneurship is building its following in the Philippines regardless if the business is macro, small, medium or large in size. The owners of the establishments are themselves the one driving the adoption. Maybe the fish and meat sellers will come online soon and that will definitely seal the concept of having an “Online Palengke” for the convenience of our customers.

 

BigBenta.com CEO & Founder Charlie Fong. His vision is to help Filipino entrepreneurs get online to grow their business

 BigBenta Marketplace is the only e-commerce platform in the Philippines that features free classified ads (buy and sell), online stores, and service bookings. Through these platforms, it aims to help the Filipino entrepreneur and MSMEs use the internet to grow their business

Picture Credits: pic 1 & 2

Grassroots Digital Entrepreneurship: Neighborhood Rice & Cooking Gas Online

We obviously have seen branded products and high-end items being sold online by large e-commerce providers in almost every part of the world that can support acceptable Internet speed. Here in the Philippines, we suffer from the two outstanding issues that hamper the otherwise explosive growth of e-commerce namely, acceptance of payment from both the buyer and the seller

and the 

expensive cost of shipping. The thing is, online products can be lower compared to Mall or Store prices only if the delivery or shipping cost is kept to a minimum. By buying a product with a higher price value, translating to a bigger savings but having the weight or volume literally light or preferably less than 2 kilos, is the sweetest spot in e-commerce purchase for any buyer. An obvious example of this would be electronic gadgets, which can give a buyer as much as several thousands of pesos in savings while incurring only less than two hundred pesos in delivery cost.

So what if the product being offered has the opposite characteristics meaning has a rather low price but very, very heavy in weight. This then should not even be considered in e-commerce. So what happens then when several Rice and

Cooking gas dealers decided to go digital and offer their product online? The catch is the dealer’s price doesn’t have huge savings for the customers, are very heavy such that if delivered by standard courier provider will be more expensive than the cost of the product itself and the customers are used to paying via cash-on-delivery (COD). An interesting discussion and problem solving exercise then comes to play.

To give some context, these dealers are your ordinary merchants found in various wet markets in Metro Manila. We have encountered such entrepreneur in Pasig, the other in Paranaque and the most recent one was from Las Pinas wet market. All of them wanted to increase their sales and expand their market, but with the current product that they have, geographical presence and reach is quite limited.

To say the least, a customized approach was developed so that our dealers of rice and cooking gas could open their own online store through www.bigbenta.com, get confirmed transaction orders in selected areas, have their products delivered and collect their payment via COD. At the time of writing, I suspect that they could probably be the first online store of rice and cooking gas in the history of the e-commerce in the Philippines. Talk about taking digital entrepreneurship on the grass root level!

A blog written by Mr. Charlie Fong

 BigBenta Marketplace is the only e-commerce platform in the Philippines that features free classified ads (buy and sell), online stores, and service bookings. Through these platforms, it aims to help the Filipino entrepreneur and MSMEs use the internet to grow their business

Picture Sources: Freepik.com

BigBenta.com’s CEO, Mr. Charlie Fong at UST

Last Saturday, February 4, 2017 I spent nearly an entire day in the University of Santo Tomas (UST) in Espana, Manila to conduct a hands-on training to majority of the Junior and Senior students about Online Marketplace using the BigBenta Marketplace site.  As I personally conducted the training, little did I know that the trainer would become the trainee as my eyes again would open up to the future of digital entrepreneurship at the grassroots level, the students.

All the attending students at the training have two things in common; they are all taking Entrepreneurship subject as part of the course curriculum and all are participating in the school’s university-wide competition aimed at harnessing the entrepreneurial spirit among students. To spice up the competition, the school is proactively promoting not only the traditional approach (brick & mortar business model) in entrepreneurship but recognizing the huge impact of going digital. This is the reason why UST asked BigBenta www.bigbenta.com, having the most comprehensive online marketplace in the country today, to help its students realize their digital entrepreneurship potential. Though the idea of conducting trainings is all too common, my experience last Saturday was everything but.

Mr. Charlie Fong at UST for BigBenta.com’s training sessions

At the start of the training sessions (morning and afternoon), the students  were typically slow and silent, but in a matter of minutes, they became engaging and interactive as the BigBenta service platform was presented. The comprehensive presentation made them recognize the flexibility of the platform to support all kinds of products and services. The students appreciated the fact that BigBenta Marketplace was built to accommodate entrepreneurs regardless of products and services they offer. And because it was built locally, it has the capability to accommodate changes and customize its features based on real customer needs and requirements.  It was also comforting for the students to know that BigBenta has a strong Customer Support team, which is on call to support their needs.

The students and I spent a good amount of time in understanding the various concepts of their businesses and how best to use BigBenta Marketplace platform to achieve their business goals. From putting the best pictures and product or service description, to which products are suited for courier delivery, to enabling cash-on-delivery as payment option, and many more. It was indeed was a very productive session all through out. True to being young, the students were so proficient in digital and internet that during the hands-on session, they were several steps ahead of me in creating their own online stores, despite doing it for the first time.

For a very few, the hands-on training is just a part of the student’s course curriculum but for the most that I had the rare opportunity to understand their immediate and future business interests. They have realized that supporting their family or parent’s traditional businesses using social entrepreneurship or by using social network (e.g. facebook) is not the most efficient way to do business. Coming out from the hands-on session, they have acquired the confidence to move their businesses to digital where most people at my age or older would take if not months, but years to do so.  

UST Students together with the BigBenta.com’s Team

BigBenta.com’s Thess Peres, UST Students and Mr. Charlie Fong

At the end of the training day, the energy and enthusiasm generated by the students is a welcome experience for me not only on the prospect of BigBenta’s business moving forward, but more on seeing my future customers and partners and how they will take their current traditional business into digital. This discovery for me is the best new knowledge to boost my confidence as well. This serves as my personal preview why the future of digital entrepreneurship in the Philippines is not only secure; and it is coming sooner than expected.

Educating Gen Xers’ or Advising Millennials?

At a certain age, learning something new seems to be more of a burden rather than a discovery. They say “you can’t teach old dog new tricks” but if it’s a question of survival, in this case as an entrepreneur and your business hangs in the balance then perhaps survival instinct lords over any inhibitions or reluctance to learn new things.

The growth of the Internet and its mobile counterpart has broken many preconceived barriers in business. Suddenly, almost anyone can buy and sell, transact and pay online, through the use of their mobile devices. The rate of adoption is nearly doubling every year and the Philippine market is experiencing near that, but unfortunately, not quite fast enough compared to our neighboring countries.

BigBenta CEO, Mr. Charlie Fong

As a founder of an online marketplace (www.bigbenta.com) and a strong advocate of digital entrepreneurship, I’m pondering on whether it would make more sense for me to push the idea of Filipino digital entrepreneurship to the current business owners (who are mostly Gen Xers’ that are resistant to change and learning new things like e-commerce) or just advising the Millennials and let their sheer number and eventual mass adoption take the market further.

While it may appear that the Millennials are easier to take on due to their inherent openness to the use of new technology and ease of advising, rather than educating/teaching, it is the Gen Xers’ that represent the larger size of the business pie but such requires a stronger effort in educating and teaching them to adopt digital entrepreneurship. From my actual experience with several Gen Xers’ with their brick and mortar business mindset, they cannot easily move to digital unlike their millennial counterparts that are almost ready to adopt. The Millennials with their sheer number will someday dominate the entrepreneur market in the coming years, but not yet for now.

So the question perhaps given the limited resources is what group should we focus on pushing for digital adoption? The current, bigger player but harder to adopt or the smaller, easier to adopt, but represents the future of the entrepreneur market. Choices like these are never easy and no one says that business decisions are that easy to make. Though I could play it safe by taking on the Gen Xers’ and Millennial at the same time, since I will be serving the existing and leveraging for the future, business conditions don’t allow me to play with that wide capability.

We therefore chose to tackle the challenges of “Now” and take on the Gen Xers’ for several compelling reasons. The Gen Xers’ present the bigger challenge but provides the biggest reward in terms of market share, market size and loyalty if we convince them to take this path. The existing business and reach of the Gen Xers’ entrepreneur are well established and running. Securing their business for the future is an easier argument to convince them to move to digital. The Millennials with their young, adventurous lifestyle will always find digital in all its form as part of their own way of life. They will consciously seek digital adoption whether it is for or work, like its second nature to them. We might not even be required to advice them on how to become a digital entrepreneur. They are in their own ways, hooked on digital already, through their community and social network. The future is always with them.

 BigBenta Marketplace is the only e-commerce platform in the Philippines that features free classified ads (buy and sell), online stores, and service bookings. Through these platforms, it aims to help the Filipino entrepreneur and MSMEs use the internet to grow their business

Picture credits: adweek.com, infinityconcepts.net, fool.com/investing/, rismedia.com