Smart Pinoy store changes the way global Filipinos shop

MANILA, Philippines - We Filipinos have a long-standing tradition with our sari-sari stores, where a majority of our daily life’s essentials can easily be found off our community mom-and-pop shops. But with over 10 million Filipinos now calling every corner of the globe as home, how can we bring back the familiarity, the convenience, and the warm ties our village stores bring?

Smart, the country’s largest mobile connectivity provider, through its parent company PLDT, the leading telecoms provider in the Philippines, recently unveiled a revolutionary feature off its already diverse and developmental mix, by bringing the warmth and cordiality of Filipino shopping to the rest of the world, with the Smart Pinoy Store.

“We at PLDT are always steadfast in serving our countrymen overseas, and we try our best to enable and empower the global Pinoy. PLDT Global has been PLDT’s arm in bridging our fellow countrymen across the various corners of the globe to their families and friends here. Despite the vast distances, we are the Pinoy brand that they can truly call home, wherever they are,” explains PLDT EVP and Enterprise, International, and Carrier Business Eric Alberto.

And, with the launching of PLDT Global’s revitalized SMART Pinoy Store, over 100,000 overseas Smart subscribers across eight countries can not only avail of the unparalleled connectivity with their loved ones back here in the Philippines, they are also opened up to a retail experience that is a tad closer to home.

“Through the Smart Pinoy Store, OFWs can conveniently take advantage of gifts being sent back home, not just for special occasions, but for day-to-day needs. They can also directly pay for the needs of their families back in the Philippines, with respect to their utility bills, tuition fees at school, as well as for medical services,” explains PLDT Global President and CEO Alex Caeg. With their mantra, “Express Presents, Express Presence,” Smart Pinoy Store makes it possible for miles-away working Pinoys and migrants to send their love with just a click of a key, or swipe of a smart phone.

By partnering with local retail behemoth SM Malls and global tech gadgets giant Samsung, alongside other brands that capitalize on convenience and countrywide popularity, the Smart Pinoy Store cements its advantage as the pioneer in e-commerce and digital offering in the country.

“We have been doing this on the platform of bill payments for quite some time, so that people can pay for their electric bills, water bills, even their school tuition fees, and the like. What we’re doing now is moving from biller payments to physical products,” Caeg notes. “What’s important is translating the online experience into a very physical one. We make sure that the by sending the gift, the intention of sending the money is actually fulfilled. So, if you want to send the money to buy a refrigerator, you make sure that the ref gets home. You go to SM mall and you pick up that Samsung ref. So we complete the loop,” Caeg summarizes.

This well-designed loop involves SM Global Pinoy, also a purveyor in tapping the buying powers of the overseas Filipino in greatly expanding the megabrand’s evolutionary retail strategies. “Several years ago, SM was trying to find out how we can help and contribute to our OFWs. Every day, more than three million people across all our 48 malls, enter our SM Malls. It is a huge number, and out of this, almost nine out of 10 will have a relative somewhere around the world,” SM Global Pinoy Program director Glenn Ang explains the staggering statistic that helped build the 37 SM Global Pinoy Centers, a haven of rest and rewards for visiting OFWS and their families, around the country.

By letting OFWs acquire SM gift certificates, send them to their waiting families across time-zones in an instant, which, in turn, can be used to avail various products and services on offer among SM retail outlets and affiliates, even the mundane act of doing the groceries have taken that global advantage. “This partnership with PLDT will further strengthen our commitment to providing more services and conveniences to our OFW families,” Ang stresses.

For its part, South Korean technology powerhouse Samsung committed to offer its diverse, innovative offerings for the Smart Pinoy Store subscriber at drastically discounted prices.

“Our main thrust at Samsung Philippines is to make our wide range of consumer electronics and products available to most people as possible. By partnering with Smart Pinoy Store, PLDT Global, and SM, we actually make that happen,” says Ireen Catane, Head of Samsung Philippines’ Enterprise Business Division.

With mobile connectivity topping the shopping lists of OFWs, emphasized by an excellent sales turnover of smart phones and digital tablets, and with more and more overseas Filipinos investing on real-estate developments that foresee a surge in demand for new household appliances, to say that the Samsung and Smart Pinoy partnership is a marriage made in digital heaven is a direct understatement.

“Filipinos are into traditional buying experiences. The Smart Pinoy Store really pushes the limit, by allowing the Filipinos to go into online purchases, by partnering with giants like PLDT who can really provide a secured platform for online purchases. With this, we’re encouraging more Filipinos to go into online retail,” shares Catane.

If the Smart Pinoy Store means excellent shopping for its global subscribers, not to mention wonderful business for industry leaders SM and Samsung, is there room in the digital mall for smaller Filipino brands? For PLDT’s Eric Alberto, there is. “The launch of Smart Pinoy Store serves for us a way to bridge entrepreneurs, particularly SMEs, to bring their products and services to our overseas Filipinos, so that they can have a wider array of choices of products and goods which they can present to their friends and loved ones in the Philippines,” Alberto says. So trust that your little backyard project, or that humble pie you’re baking can soon find a sales network of up to millions abroad.

“While the primary market is overseas Filipinos, we realize that there are other non-Filipino entities who send gifts, goods and services to Filipino friends. This opens the market way beyond the over 10 million official number of OFWs, as per POEA, in the different corners of the world, exceeding the potential for the users of the Smart Pinoy Store,” Alberto waxes optimistically.  

The concept of Internet shopping and selling is not novel in the country, with homegrown sites even battling bigwigs like Amazon and eBay, but more Filipinos still prefer their traditional brick and mortars. But, perhaps, Smart has earned enough of that Filipino trust and loyalty to actually jumpstart the e-comm craze. 

“For most Filipinos, the shopping experience is a social one. They want to see the merchandise first, know the established brands. They want to make sure that the entity that they’re dealing with is not just legitimate, but is always going to be there to provide quality products. They will distribute at fair prices and they make sure that they receive the goods on time,” notes PLDT Global’s Alex Caeg.

With the three big “S” of Philippine industries putting the green light on the Pinoy Store, you can be sure it’s safe and secure. “We’ve been doing very strict security measures such that first, when you enroll, you go through a very hassle-free registration process, and you enter a password that you obviously will know yourself. And you will be identified as a unique shopper because of certain authentication questions that we ask you to answer, if, in case in the future you forget your password. But more than that, our backend provides some certain, fool-proof security measures,” reveals Caeg. Through Paypal, the world’s leading online payment portal, you can rest easy knowing that your loved one’s banking details are kept private, despite Smart Pinoy Store’s rather global reach.

Suddenly, it all seems like the Pinoy engineer in Dubai or the Pinay nurse in UK just went out to their corner sari-sari or neighborhood mall, shopping and sending love starts feeling familiar again. Not only did the Smart Pinoy Store launch mark a momentous chapter in Filipino e-commerce, it was also a rare chance that three major forces of enterprise in the country combined for a singular, noteworthy cause. “We need to further enhance and strengthen the connection of our fellow Filipinos with one another. We partner with companies who share the same valid aspirations that we aim for, to serve the Filipinos’ dreams the best way we can,” says PLDT’s Eric Alberto.

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Visit the Smart Pinoy Store on its online portal, https://store.smartpinoy.com, or follow them on Twitter @smartpinoystore.