A fairy tale called Inday Shopper
Once upon a time, in Sta. Ana, Manila, there was a simple girl named Mello Hazel Briones. She helped her parents, both teachers, in their sari-sari store to make both ends meet. While finishing her tourism course at the Centro Escolar University, she became a promo girl putting stickers on cars while wearing skimpy outfits because she wanted to earn her own keep.
The luxuries of life were not afforded her. But later on in life, she sold luxury to others: Hermès bags. And with her every earning, she was able to afford a luxurious life.
In Mello’s story, there were no magic wands involved. No powder dusts with magical effects. No potions. Only hard work. Her own hard work — and word of honor and trustworthiness — became her own magic.
Mello also goes by the name Inday Shopper. Yes, she has been a personal shopper of the rich around the world for 10 years now. And with that sobriquet comes thousands and thousands of Hermès bags she has bought and sold to the “rich and ultra-rich” around the world. The most expensive Hermès bag she sold: Birkin 30 Himalaya with diamonds worth more than P20 million. She sold two of those.
“My being a personal shopper was not really planned. I am based in the Flemish region of Belgium because I married a Belgian whom I met when I was working for Mandarin Oriental Manila. We have been married for 15 years, with two children,” she begins. Her husband and his family are in the hotel and restaurant business.
“I would frequent the flea market in Lilles, France, about two hours away from our house in Belgium, to shop for porcelain, cutlery, candelabras and the like. I would put on my IG the photos of my purchases. My friends began to like them so they asked to buy my finds. Soon, I was shopping for them,” she begins. (Her IG @indayshopper has more than 74,000 followers.)
One time, a client of everything antique from Manila asked if she could get her an Hermès Kelly or Birkin. Mello was unsure if she could get it for her until she realized her mother-in-law, who has a farm that breeds and sells horses, has been a long-time buyer of horse soaps and saddles at Hermès Paris. Her mother-in-law, “ever-loving and supportive,” helped her get the bag. That instance, she sold her first-ever Hermès bag: a Birkin 35 Sapphire.
From that first sale, Inday Shopper slowly started to become a household name among those with disposable income. Until she became an elite shopper for Hermès. An elite shopper, she explains, gets first dibs on every new item Hermès has in store. She does not line up to buy a bag. “And it is always hard to get an Hermès bag because there’s always worldwide competition among women to score that covetable arm candy.
“I chose to specialize in Hermès bags because not every bag brand has a high reselling value,” she says. She adds the name “Inday Shopper” was her personal choice to highlight that, like an “inday” or a server in an opulent household, “genuine service” is what she gives her clients. In the Philippines, her business has grown “to become Inday Shopper Corp.”
Mello goes by the rule of protecting the identity of her clients. Many times, many of her clients around the world will just call her if she has this or that item that she can ship to them from Belgium. Her stock easily gets wiped out.
One time, a Filipino-Chinese lady asked her to deliver a bag to Hong Kong and Mello flew from Belgium to deliver the item that her client wanted to use for Christmas. “That’s the kind of service that I do. Even if it was Christmas time, even if I needed to ask my husband to take care of our kids, I would fly to meet the demand of a client,” she says.
While meeting up with a client in New York — the biggest portion of her buyers are from the US — she grew nostalgic. That trip was proof that, indeed, her life had changed.
“After my stint in Mandarin, I worked for a cruise liner as a receptionist. The ship was docked in New York. I was ready with my winter clothes because my mother accompanied me to an ukay-ukay in Makati to buy thick jackets. She even borrowed $200 from a relative for my pocket money. But my winter clothes were no match for the cold weather of New York. I froze,” she says with crusty laughter.
When did she know she had already made a name as a personal shopper?
“When Christie’s and Sotheby’s asked to buy or commission a bag or two from me,” she says.
How hard or easy is it to be a personal shopper?
“I started buying shoes and kids’ stuff, sometimes even an Hermès bicycle, before I concentrated on bags. Some are not focused buyers. I would send them photos of the bags. They would choose a black bag. I had already purchased the item, it had arrived home, only to find out that they had changed their mind. They liked a blue bag instead of black. No complaints. I am a personal shopper. That’s how I earn. I would go back to the store to change the bag,” she says.
Mello says she sells between 20 and 25 bags a month — from “the most affordable items to the exotic bags to the rare bags to the one-is-to-one bags.”
“The clients from the US and Europe are transactional in nature. Kaliwaan. The Asian clients, say the Pinoys, are investigative, ma-chica, loving,” she says.
As a personal shopper, Mello always makes sure she will not run out of funds. “Whatever my clients want, I should be able to buy it for them first. And if I run short of funds, I borrow from my mother-in-law,” she smiles.
“I ventured into selling bags because I wanted to earn my own keep. I have nothing to complain of because my husband provides very well for our family. But I want to earn so I can also help my parents in the Philippines,” she says.
Her parents now shuttle between their houses in Batangas and Laguna. And from time to time, her mother avails herself of a Belo treatment when she and her husband visit Mello in her house in Makati.
Mello, despite the luxurious trappings her business brings, has remained the Sta. Ana girl in a sense that she has not forgotten to help others. She comes home to Manila twice a year to give back. In the gift bags are rice and corned beef — “because those were what I sold in our sari-sari store before.”
“God is good. He answers prayers. God is really, really good,” she says.
Mello’s story is a fairy tale characterized by her desire to better her life — and others’ lives. Inday Shopper, with God’s grace, has lived happily ever after. *
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