Cellphones are No. 1 item sold online; OLX.ph opens Cebu office

CELLPHONES and computers are the top items being sold  over the Internet, according to online selling website OLX.ph, which opened its Cebu office last week.

To increase market penetration and encourage  households to start selling online,  OLX.ph has deployed 20 ambassadors and opened its  first meet-up hub in the Visayas.

OLX Philippines chairman, president and managing director RJ David was in Cebu last Wednesday to open their first office outside of Manila at  the ground floor of Creativo IT Center II at the Cebu Business Park.

David said they have been coming to Cebu since 2012 when the company was still known as Sulit.com.ph.  That was before the site was acquired by Naspers early last year.

“We found that Cebu is an important market for us and a good area to start our  expansions,” he said.

David said that they also recently acquired AyosDito which has been merged to become a single online selling platform since January this year.

As of November last year, OLX.ph had over three million sellers and over a million average active postings in 30 days.

Of the  average active postings, about 100,000 are posted from Cebu.

“We got a high liquidity rate of 58 percent here in Cebu or the rate of actual sales transacted. That’s about the same rate as in Manila,” he said.

David, however, said that there is a need to further develop the Cebu market.

They have 20 ambassadors that go door-to-door visiting and teaching households how to make an OLX account and start selling online.

The ambassadors have a target of getting at least 10,000 new listers every month here in Cebu.

TOP PRODUCTS

According to David, the top three products sold on their  platform are cellphones (mostly  smartphones), then laptops and personal computers.

“For the most searched items we have  cars, motorcycles and then iPhones,” he said.

David said that to further encourage legitimate transactions, they are offering the Cebu office as  a meet-up hub.

“They can schedule meet-ups here. We always encourage sellers and buyers to meet up first when transacting to avoid fraud,” he said.

With the growing trend  of smartphones, David said, the site is slowly shifting to become a mobile company through their mobile application for Android and IOS devices.

“We’re starting to see results now as about 50 percent of the users are accessing our platform through the mobile app,” he said.

Last year, 47 percent of cellphones sold through their website were  smartphones. David said that soon every Filipino will have his or her own smartphone and use the  device for many functions including online selling, paying bills and more.

Affordable data packages offered by  telecommunication companies will  fuel the shift to more mobile use, said David.

With Cebu as their headquarters for the Visayas and Mindanao, more personnel will be hired, said David.