Redpages.ph, the way to do business

Sunday, 28 February 2010 15:56

The advent of internet has opened countless opportunities for every discerning businessman. Creative Online Media Inc. chief executive officer Dennis Ng saw an opportunity in the services sector by providing a platform for doing business. Ng created redpages.ph to allow small and medium enterprises to sell their products and look for suppliers through the internet. Now, redpages.ph is the fastest growing marketplace in the Philippines providing an online marketplace. There are already 17,000 Philippine companies that have been pre-listed in the redpages.ph for a limited exposure of their company for free. “Purchasers need not scan the telephone directory and call each one of them for quotations. All a purchaser has to do is post their buying leads for suppliers to see and send their quotations, Buyers can post unlimited buying leads at no cost,” Ng said SMEs are entitled to feature up to five products. Each company can upload products, photos and company profile. But, for a company to be assigned its own website plus unlimited number of product postings, they have to upgrade by paying an annual fee of P8,888. “The annual payment is but just peanuts compared to the countless opportunities they can avail through the redpages.ph,” Ng said. Users can view mini-webpages and listings in over 30 industry categories and nearly 350 product categories from agriculture to funerals and so much more. The company also offers 1,005 design templates to choose from to suit a particular company’s business. All companies under the premium listing are given specific website. Once a company has decided to upgrade into the premium list, it would be subjected to a verification procedure by a third party to ensure that all the listed companies are legitimate businesses. Creative Online has engaged the services of Dun & Bradstreet, a US-based company that provides international and US business credit information and credit reports, for the authentication process, which is done on an annual basis. “Our primary objectives are to promote e-commerce within the Philippines and utilize the internet to link businesses with international buyers, vendors, trade facilitation bodies and government institutions. We hope to enable Filipino businesses to create a place for themselves in the e-world and get their share out of this fast growing trade channel,” said Ng. The company is also engaged in search engine optimization by continually updating Yahoo and Google of their listed companies so that searches would automatically redirect to the redpages website and put their companies on top the list. True enough, redpages.ph always comes among the top links for every search for a Philippine company. Indeed, gone are the days when businesses have to rely on word of mouth and person to person contact to promote their businesses. The web-based way of doing business is now the demand of the times. “On our part, we are making selling and buying easy,” said Ng. Ng expects to list 500 companies by end this year and at least 2,000 by next year. There are estimated 1.3 million domestic enterprises that can be listed into the redpages. Ng could only dream that they would someday become the Alibaba of the Philippines, but who knows? Alibaba provides B2B for Chinese firms with an estimated listing of 4 million now although China has 30 million SMEs. There are long term goals including listing in the stock market, but for now Ng would rather concentrate on the strengthening and building their capacity.