Onestore hub has 10.9 million hits

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) said its online store that showcases products of local micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) recorded almost 11 million hits in 2017, or an 80 percent increase from the previous year’s 6.1 million hits.

Engineer Sancho Mabborang, DOST Region 2 director and onestore.ph program manager, said the huge increase in views of the DOST-developed e-commerce showed that Filipino MSME products are getting global exposure through the internet.

Data analytics done by the DOST onestore.ph project management office on the e-commerce platform showed that the views or hits reached 10,912,584 for the whole of 2017.

Mabborang noted there was again a large percentage of hits coming from abroad, with more than 5.8 million, while local views were at 5,068,375.

It will be recalled that the foreign hits on the website for 2016 were around 90 percent.

“This could mean that there is also a huge increase in the awareness of the onestore.ph online store among our fellow Filipinos as a result of our persistent efforts to promote the e-commerce portal,” Mabborang told The STAR.

Online transactions done on the onestore.ph website had reached P1.3 million in 2017, a significant increase from the previous year’s P1,015,900.

While the amount seemed small, Mabborang said that they believe this was because repeat transactions are done outside the portal once buyers and sellers conclude their first online transactions.

Onestore.ph has a total 10,902 products showcased and for sale on the portal.

Science Secretary Fortunato dela Peña said that the success of onestore.ph has been noticed by the Department of Trade Industry (DTI), which has forged a partnership with the DOST for the inclusion of their assisted MSMEs into the program.

“We want to help more MSMEs as possible. So we are happy that we have forged this partnership with the DTI,” Dela Peña said.