Chinese online retailer YiLinker joins Philippine fray

AND THEN there were more.

Barely a week after Thai e-commerce site iTrueMart launched in the Philippines, China’s YiLinker did the same, but differentiating themselves with a “unique value proposition”: making it possible for people to earn passive income just by posting merchandise on their respective social media sites.

“The difference with YiLinker is we’d like to let everyone to do their business and use [their social media accounts] their power to promote their jobs,” YiLinker Philippines Chief Executive Officer Nelson Liao told the media during the Dec. 2 launch at Solaire Resort and Casino.

The online marketplace, set to go live Dec. 12 with an accompanying mobile app, is said to already have “around 400 suppliers and 600 sellers” and “more than 5,000 SKUs (Standard Keeping Units)”, according to Mr. Liao. YiLinker accepts retailers as well as individual sellers, provided they come with all the necessary legal documents and permits.

The company also introduced the concept of the affiliate program, where a person — again, with all the necessary legal documents and proof of identity — can browse through an estimated 2,000 products (as of this writing), choose what they want to sell, set up a virtual shop via the Web site, and promote the products through their social media accounts. After selling a product, the affiliate (middle-man) can earn up to 60% of the company’s revenue from the product, though the commission rate differs from product to product).

“We share almost 60% of our net income [with] commissions,” Mr. Liao said. Thus, affiliates “receive higher than what the company receives.” He added that this practice is in keeping with the company’s philosophy of distributing revenue to everyone who has helped the company.

On logistics and warehousing and other infrastructure, Mr. Liao said that YiLinker is investing $6 million from the latter part of 2015 until Q1 of 2016 and reported that they now have warehouses in Muntinlupa, Caloocan, Mandaluyong, and Quezon Cities.

YiLinker is also setting up its own delivery services but is now partnering with logistics providers to deliver products to the provinces. Mr. Liao said that come the second quarter of 2016, the company will have set up branches in “major cities in the provinces, like Cebu” and will be delivering independent of external providers.

An online gateway will also be introduced in the third quarter, roughly the same time the Singapore-based company will continue its expansion plans — which started in the Philippines — into other Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand and Vietnam, which Mr. Liao described as “very similar to the Philippines.”

He explained that YiLinker expanded into the Philippines first due to the local e-commerce industry’s infance. He added that the company will be entering Thailand and Vietnam first, as Indonesia “already has big players such as Alibaba.”

Mr. Liao said YiLinker will be on Southeast Asia expansion for the next three years but has set its sights on East Asia next. — Zsarlene B. Chua