After a stellar 40-year career in the banking industry, Joey Bermudez returned to the one thing he has always been most passionate about: social enterprise.
The birth of Iskaparate (www.iskaparate.com) came at a time when the Philippines, along with the rest of the world, was put under the most brutal mobility restrictions in March last year because of the pandemic.
“During the height of the lockdown, we saw an announcement from the Microfinance Council of the Philippines saying our micro entrepreneurs need as much as help as they can get. Because they’re not able to sell, most of them sell only from home. That’s their factory. That’s also their store. People are not even allowed to walk in the streets. How can people see their products?” Bermudez said.
For him, the answer was simple: “Let’s put them online.”
Iskaparate is an avenue for entrepreneurial mothers, to showcase their products even without a brick-and-mortar setup. The platform calls its members nanay, the Filipino term for mother. It is operated by Maybridge Financial Group, a company founded by Bermudez that specializes in SME lending.
The concept behind the platform was inspired by the idea of a “tiangge”, where stalls are right beside each other, selling a variety of products. Pre-pandemic, the tiangge was a popular choice for shoppers who want to haggle prices – and buyer and seller get to know their stories in the process because of the kwentuhan (conversation) that goes along with the negotiations.
Bermudez tried to replicate this online through Iskaparate, where nanays can promote their products and at the same time, share their stories.
“Ang ginawa namin, online tiangge. Para doon sila puntahan ng mga buyers. Kailangan marami sila. Kasi would you go to a tiangge na tatlo lang yung magbebenta? Siyempre gusto mo marami para marami kang choices,” Bermudez explained.
(What we did was to have an online tiangge so that buyers can check them out there. There should be a lot of sellers because would you go to a tiangge where there are only three people selling? Of course, you want to have many choices.)
It's the "selling style" in Iskaparate, Bermudez said. "Get the customer first to warm up to the nanay. And then the customer will probably buy."
“It’s not the click and pay model. It’s talk, negotiate, agree, and then pay. Kaya ang hirap nila dalhin online, pero posible (That's why it is difficult to bring them online but it is possible). So we said when we put the nanays online, we will prove our hypothesis that micro entrepreneurs can be brought online,” he added.
Bermudez and Maybridge launched Iskaparate in September last year. Iskaparate is a term used generations ago to mean "estante", a showcase or shelf where sellers display their products. A lot of young Filipinos may not be familiar with this term, but "iskaparate" is a classic and timeless word.
Bermudez said the platform fondly calls its members Nanay Iska because the nanays have an "iskaparate" where they can sell food, services, and household items. Having been to at least a hundred focus group discussions with micro entrepreneurs, Bermudez observed how the nanays tend to show more commitment.
"Nakikita ko talaga yung commitment tsaka discipline sa mga nanays. No offense to the tatays like me. May ilang tatay na nasa platform, but you see the level of the engagement of the nanays, no match yung sa mga guys. Mukhang minority kami," he chuckled.
(I really see the commitment and discipline of the nanays. No offense to the tatays like me. There are also some tatays in the platform, but if you see the level of the engagement of the nanays, the guys are no match them. It looks like we tatays are the minority.)
To get things started, Bermudez made a dummy website similar to what can now be seen on Iskaparate’s platform. He showed the prototype to several people. Some found the idea helpful and left it at that, while there were others who said, "Pwede bang umpisahan na natin 'yan? (Can we start this now?)"
KASAGANA-KA was the first organization to join Iskaparate. The social development non-government organization brought in 33 of their micro-entrepreneurs as the pioneer members of the online store. Of the 33 Nanays, 17 of them already had a combined total sales worth Php 2 million. One nanay who provides air-conditioning cleaning services got a contract with one of the country's largest shopping malls through Iskaparate.
Soon after, other organizations and programs joined Iskaparate, including the Office of the Vice President's Angat Buhay, the Foundation for Enterprise Management Innovations, Inc., and GoNegosyo.
Iskaparate has since grown to about 129 members, and now includes a few tatays, ates, and kuyas — Filipino terms for father, older sister, and older brother, respectively. For shoppers looking to revisit the flavors of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, there are also nanays who are Ilocanos, Ilonggos, Gaddangs, and Maranaos, among others.
Many people told Bermudez that micro entrepreneurs aren’t cut out for online selling, but he thought otherwise.
“They mentioned concerns that to me are really valid. First of all, it’s expensive to go online on your own. Secondly, kung mag-isa ka lang naman, hindi ka rin papansinin unless malaki ang production capacity mo (If you're a one-man team, you probably won't get noticed unless you have a large production capacity). Third, since a lot of them are between 45 to 60 years old, there is this natural fear of technology,” he explained.
Though some nanays were initially hesitant to go online, Bermudez pointed out how a lot of them are actually open to accepting digital payments, especially those who have already tried online selling.
Bermudez said he finds PayMongo “more applicable” to the nanays, as he emphasized the importance of link distribution for micro entrepreneurs.
“Kasi yung link distribution very important ‘yan sa negosyo ng mga nanay. When somebody looks at their products online, it is not as simple as select, click, checkout pay. Halimbawa ang ginagawa nung nanay ay bedsheets. Kung may um-order ng 1,000 bedsheets. Kaya niya ba ‘yun? Kailangan yung customer makipagusap muna sa nanay. Then, pag nagkasundo na sila, the nanay will tell us magda-downpayment yung customer. Padadalhan na namin ng PayMongo link yung customer,” he explained.
(Link distribution is very important to the businesses of the nanays. When somebody looks at their products online, it is not as simple as select, click, checkout, pay. If for example a nanay sold bedsheets and someone orders 1,000 bedsheets, will the nanay be able to make them all? The customer first needs to negotiate with the nanay. Once they agree, that's when the nanay will tell us that the customer will make a downpayment. Then we send the customer a PayMongo link.)
Moving forward, Bermudez said each nanay will be taught how to use PayMongo once Iskaparate migrates to a new host for its website and becomes a full-fledged e-commerce storefront.
Bermudez acknowledged that it can be challenging to create economic resources to sustain a social enterprise like Iskaparate.
“We see here the typical 80-20 scenario—80 percent of your nanays will be average. The 20 percent, they are the surprise. To make the 20 percent infect the 80 is a huge challenge. Our debate now within the Iskaparate organization is: If we have these resources which are limited, do we spend it on uplifting the 80 percent, or on recruiting the others who are like the 20 percent now?” he said.
In addition to serving as a platform for the online store of nanays, Iskaparate endeavors to educate them on how to navigate social media platforms, especially those who are hesitant to use technology. By doing so, the nanays gain more confidence in exploring the digital marketplace and are given a fighting chance in establishing themselves as digital entrepreneurs.
“We’re training more and more of them to upload their own content, to know how to take good images even from their phone cameras. Yung iba sa kanila may anak na social media savvy so natutulungan sila. Yung iba na takot pa rin, tinuturuan namin (Some of them have children who are social media savvy and are able to help them. We also teach those who find it hard to overcome their fear of technology),” Bermudez said.
But for some nanays, becoming a digital citizen with an online store is not something that comes easy. Bermudez shared how one nanay was unable to respond to her customers’ messages because she and her five children share the same smartphone used for online classes. So, Iskaparate created a new product to address these kinds of concerns.
“What seems so simple to us is complicated to them. Realizing that, sabi namin, hindi ito yung mga Shopify type of merchants na kayang bantayan yung tindahan nila. So, we created a product called store minder. Sabi namin sa mga nanay na nahihirapan magbantay ng online store, kami na 'ho ang magbabantay,” Bermudez said.
(What seems so simple to us is complicated to them. Realizing that, we said, these are not the Shopify type of merchants who can consistently keep track of their online stores. So, we created a product called store minder. We told the nanays having a hard time keeping track of their online stores that we will be the ones to do it for them.)
Before the pandemic, Bermudez would split his time between the Philippines and Canada. Sometimes, he would spend more than half the year in Manila. However, when most countries imposed travel restrictions in March last year, he had to manage Iskaparate from Toronto.
Bermudez does not seem to mind dealing with the different timezones, even if that meant staying up until the wee hours of the morning in Canada to hold virtual mentoring programs in the Philippines.
"Sanayan lang 'yan. Okay lang 'yan, part of the territory 'yan eh (It only takes some getting used to. That's okay, it's part of the territory)," he laughed.
Every time he held talks for GoNegosyo, Bermudez said he would see a spike in applications through Iskaparate's website.
"Usually after the talk, let's say I end at 3 a.m. my time, the website would suddenly be overloaded with applications. So people who hear about it naturally get attracted to it then maybe look at the site and say, 'I think I can be part of this, it's free anyway'," Bermudez said.
Bermudez's advocacy for social enterprises began when he was a young banker.
“As far back as maybe 25 years ago... I felt at that time, the banks—if they only understood the risks in lending to microenterprises, they’d probably do it a lot more. Except the banks were too lazy to do it,” he said.
Throughout his career in large commercial banks, Bermudez tried convincing his colleagues that microenterprise borrowers are better borrowers than their corporate counterparts.
"If you look at repayment experiences, you compare how the good microfinance institutions do compared to the banks, the delinquency rate between the two is almost the same. Why is that so? Shouldn't the microfinance institutions have a higher delinquency rate?" Bermudez said, stressing the point that microenterprise borrowers are diligent when it comes to paying their loans.
After creating products for SMEs and joining several focus group discussions with micro entrepreneurs, Bermudez got his answer. He realized that many micro entrepreneurs exemplified a kind of discipline, commitment, and dedication not normally seen among the usual borrowers.
“Each one of them desires nothing more than to perform well so that they can be trusted more, because they know how difficult it is to get money from a lender. The less options you have in life, the more you try do better. The more you try do better, the better a borrower you become. That’s my theory," he said.
Right now, Bermudez sees Iskaparate as “90 percent advocacy and 10 percent business,” though he said they are slowly moving toward making the platform more business-oriented without being prohibitive for the nanays. Recently, Iskaparate registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
By June this year, Iskaparate looks forward to onboarding 1,000 nanays. The future looks bright.🌱
(Editor's note: This story has been updated to include the English translation for the quotes in Filipino.)