Multiply social platform to be scrapped by December

SOCIAL NETWORKING site Multiply, Inc. will be scrapping its photo sharing and blogging offerings by December to pave the way for its complete shift into e-commerce platform, a notice posted on its Web site showed.

"From Dec. 1, we will unfortunately no longer be able to support Multiply in its current form -- notably, we will be removing the social networking and content sharing part of Multiply (photos, videos, blogs, social messaging, etc.)," Stephan Magdalinski, Multiply's chief operating officer, told clients in a notice on the Web site.

"We have decided to discontinue providing and hosting these services, as we have concluded that other Internet sites who are committed to social networking services will do a better job serving you than we can," he added.

This comes as Multiply is eyeing to completely transform the site into an e-commerce portal.

"Multiply's mission has evolved over the past year and a half to become the biggest and most beloved e-commerce marketplace in two very exciting markets, Indonesia and the Philippines," the notice read.

"As our focus has shifted, we have reviewed all of our operations, and made some decisions that will affect everyone here."

Multiply also assured its users that it will be providing easy ways for them to either download their content, or migrate it to other online services.

"For our existing ecommerce users (both buyers and sellers) in Indonesia and the Philippines, there will be no action required," the notice read further.

The company in May 2010 formally signalled a shift to the e-commerce platform despite being successful as a social networking site, Rianna R. Trinidad, the company's marketing head, had said.

She, however, noted that e-commerce transactions in the Philippines were already seen even as early as 2006.

Since the new platform is still young, Jonathan R. Madrid, country manager of Multiply.com Philippines said bulk of the transactions are still offline or "face-to-face" arrangements.

To encourage customers to shift to online commerce, Mr. Madrid said the company would be offering more payment options.

Already, Multiply.com Philippines accepts over-the-counter deposits through Bank of the Philippines Islands and BDO Unibank, Inc. It also accepts payments through PayPal and G-Cash, the money transfer facility of Globe Telecom, Inc.

Luring customers to shift to its e-commerce platform is also necessary in generating additional revenues for the company.

Multiply currently has 250,000 merchants, of which 130,000 are from the Philippines, 70,000 of which are from Indonesia while the rest are in other parts of Southeast Asia. -- C.H.C. Venzon

https://www.bworldonline.com/content.php?section=Corporate&title=Multiply-social-platform-to-be-scrapped-by-December&id=56576