INDIGO MANILA BABY PRODUCTS
By Dulce Castillo-Morales. Photos by Walter Villa
Bosom buddies Monica Eleazar and Denise Gonzales conceived their business in 2007 when each was heavy with her first child. Both wanting to be full-time mothers, they had earlier decided to leave their respective corporate jobs.
"We talked and realized that we didn't want to work for somebody else forever," Eleazar recalls. "We didn't like the idea of having only two months of maternity leave and of leaving our babies with complete strangers. So we figured that we should start doing something that we love to do. We decided to start a small business with a few products."
Pooling P100,000 each in initial capital, the two best friends since college put up Indigo Baby in October of 2007 to make specialty products for babies and mothers. They made as pilot products 300 pieces of nappy clutches, 100 pieces of reversible nursing bibs, and 400 pieces of all-natural bed-and-bath products.
Gonzales says that they initially wanted to launch their business during a bazaar at the Rockwell Mall in Makati City that year, but something developed while they were waiting for the bazaar's scheduled opening. "We posted photos of our products online at Multiply.com and we received a lot of feedback and orders," she recalls.
As it turned out, the bulk of their sales were to come from online transactions. Indeed, their online business was so brisk that in less than a year, the partners had already recovered their initial capital.
"On a good day, we would make P5,000 to P8,000," Gonzales says. "The lowest we have gotten so far is about P1,000. And there's still a lot of potential because we haven't really done PR yet; it's been all through word of mouth."
Although they have kept Indigo Baby home-based, Eleazar and Gonzales have since taken their online business to a higher level. Officially pursuing Indigo Baby as a dotcom business, they launched an international website for it last year, Indigobabyshop.com. This enabled them to serve the needs of international clients who also wanted to buy and resell their products.
Indigobabyshop.com now has wholesale buyers in Singapore and Malaysia, so the partners recently put up P250,000 in additional capital to meet the growing demand. They now also have a full-time staff to help them in soliciting and in shipping orders, and each has also hired a yaya (nanny) for her baby, who is now a toddler. "Unlike when they were still babies when we could just carry them around, they run around a lot this time. So although we remain hands-on mothers, we need extra pairs of hands to care for them," explains Eleazar.
Despite its brisk online sales, Indigo Baby has since been also participating in several bazaars held in Metro Manila. The partners say that setting up booths or stalls in bazaars gives then the opportunity to have face-to-face interaction with their customers and to talk to them about the various Indigo Baby products.
Gonzales says that Indigo Baby products sell well because they have been tried, tested, and used by their very own babies, Santi and Benny, who both turned two years old last October when Indigo Baby celebrated its second anniversary. For instance, Gonzales says, they have included such essential oils as lavender and chamomile in their product offerings because Eleazar's son used to suffer from colic, and Eleazar had found lavender and chamomile to be effective homeopathic remedies.
"Since we are both mothers, we know what we need for our kids," Gonzales explains. "For instance, dengue is rampant, and because we are afraid that our babies might contract dengue, we came up with our own baby massage products."
Indeed, Indigo Baby now has diversified into a considerable range of baby-care products as well as a growing number of mother-care products, to which the partners will soon be adding a "Yummy Mommy" line consisting of facial care and hair care products.
And this is not all. Eleazar and Gonzales, joined this time by another college friend of theirs, Jeri Carillo, recently further diversified by putting up a wedding events company, Manila Wedding Bees (www.manilaweddingbees.multiply.com) .
DS PINOY MORINGA PERSONAL CARE PRODUCTS
By Jesse Edep. Photos by Jun Pinzon
Two young women, former public relations executive Joy Ann Dimabuyu, 27, and former marketing and events officer Desiree Segovia, 30, have teamed up to come up with natural health and beauty products using a unique organic ingredient: the oil from the malunggay or horseradishh tree, Morina oleifera.
In August last year, their company, DS Pinoy Moringa Enterprises, launched its wide line of malunggay-based products: body butter, body lotion, salt scrub, foot soak, hair wax, bath soap, hygienic wash, and massage oil. Malunggay oil, also known as ben oil, has been found to be highly suitable for high-end health and beauty products because of its softening and soothing properties and antioxidant content, particularly alpha-tocopherol or Vitamin E.
"Our products were sold out within two hours after we did a test market at Mara's Organic Market in Legaspi Village in Makati," says Segovia, who handles marketing and promotions for the products.
Dimabuyu, who is in charge of operations, says that because their products have always sold very well since their launching, they were able to recover their startup capital of P2,500 immediately.
Greatly encouraged by the favorable market reception, the partners have since decided to make their malunggay-based products their main business. Previously, they had ventured into making flip-flops, designing handmade accessories, and selling religious merchandise in Bulacan.
Dimabuyu says that at present, she and Segovia are both making their malunggay-based products on a home-based basis. They source the raw materials primarily from malunggay farmers in Dumaguete City and in the provinces of Batangas and Camarines Norte. When orders get big and the local supply falls short, however, they import malunggay oil from India, its biggest producer.
The partners give credit to Edilee Omoyon of All Organics, a seller and distributor of organic bath and body products, for teaching them how to make soaps and shampoos. This led them to put up their first partnership venture, the DS Pinoy Organics and Herbal Store. DS Pinoy Moringa was an offshoot of that partnership.
DS Pinoy Moringa now has a regular outlet at the AANI Herbal Garden and Livelihood Center at the Quezon Memorial Circle in Quezon City, which is open daily, and another at Mara's Organic Market in Legaspi Village in Makati City, which is open only on Sundays. The products are now also carried by Back to the Garden, their outlet in Mandaue City.
Dimabuyu says that they have pending orders for their malunggay-based health and beauty products from the Department of Agriculture for its export showroom, and from the EchoStore at Serendra Piazza in the Fort Bonifacio Global City in Taguig City.
To promote their products, the partners have been joining trade fairs and bazaars. They are currently looking for a steady source of funding so they can meet the orders for their products from both their local outlets and their distributors in the United Arab Emirates and the United States.
They expect that within three years, with government strongly promoting the cultivation of malunggay and its health benefits, Filipinos will embrace and value a "culture of wellness" through a more widespread use of malunggay-based products.
"The good thing about our products is that the main ingredient, malunggay oil, is tried and tested," Segovia says. "So, once people become more aware of the need for proper health and natural wellness, we expect that acceptance of our all-natural products would become much easier."
JEVZAM'S ENTERPRISES TEACHING MATERIALS
By Maan D'Asis Pamaran. Photos by Walter Villa
"A lot of people ask my parents if they are teachers," says Evelyn Zamora with a grin. This is because the family business, Jevzam's Enterprises, produces colorful charts that are used by schoolteachers as instructional aids.
Her father, Jose M. Zamora, is actually an air-conditioning and refrigerator technician by trade who had spent 10 years in Saudi Arabia as a contract worker. Her mother Virginia is a dressmaking and tailoring school graduate; unable to finish first year in high school, she used to work in a garments factory before she married Jose.
Jose recalls how they got into the chart business: "I came back home to the Philippines when my visa expired in 1990. Our first business when I returned to the country was making rags. My wife knew how to sew and I told my family that we needed some sort of business from where we can get our daily expenses. But my wife gave up on making the rags because it was dusty work, what with all those fibers flying around the house!"
It was at this time that a neighbor of the Zamoras gave them the idea of making charts as a source of income. "That neighbor of ours was in the business of making instructional materials on manila paper," Jose says. One day, she asked us if we could make charts out of plastic material. She gave us a sample that she had bought from a street vendor in Blumentritt [in Manila]. I looked at the chart and I knew at once that we could replicate it. The machine we had for sewing rags was tough enough to sew through the material. We then bought five colors of the material from Divisoria and made our first batch of the charts. We showed them to teachers in nearby schools and the charts got sold out right away.?"
That was five years ago. Since then, the Zamora family has been producing various charts under the Charts Unlimited label, adding more chart designs over the years for their growing clientele. They also started distributing their products through several outlets of the Pandayan Bookstore, which has its main store in Valenzuela City.
Evelyn recalls how the family's chart business progressed: "Before every school opening, my parents would get so busy making charts. When things tapered off in the months after that, they would put up a small barbecue stand and cook and sell barbecue instead. Then, at the approach of the 'ber' months, they would start making charts again."
But because the products were so sturdily made, it took such a long time for the customers of the Zamoras to reorder charts from them. The family therefore decided to expand the markets for their charts from Valenzuela to more cities and schools.
"Now we go as far as Manila and Marikina to sell our wares," says Jose. We have added more designs to our lineup, too, and we have done away with the ordinary rectangular charts that can be bought just anywhere. Instead, we are now focusing on innovative and colorful designs that are more attractive to children, such as our apple chart, school bus chart, tree chart, sunflower chart, and pencil chart. We also make items for specific school lessons like the days of the week, place value, and fractions. They are now among our bestsellers. One other bestseller of ours is the 'Show Me' chart, which schoolchildren use to learn how to spell out words."
Jose says that no job is too big or too small for them to make, and that many of their chart patterns actually are suggested or requested by the teachers themselves. "Our biggest project so far was a cake chart," he says. "I had to really use my imagination to make it. It turned out that it was actually an organizational chart for the school that ordered it."
The business is still home-based, and Evelyn says she is mostly happy with the way things are. "Expenses are kept at a minimum, because I don't have to pay for rent. I am also able to supervise our employees better, because I have less time constraints. Our family also has more opportunities to bond."
But she cites some challenges, too: "Since we don't have commercial space for display, we really have to reach out to our clients by visiting, calling, or e-mailing them. Some people don't take us seriously when they find out we work from a home office."
From their initial capital of P5,000 five years ago, Jevzam's Enterprises now has acquired four sewing machines to keep up with the growth of its production requirements. It also recently bought a computer, and is now looking into establishing dealership agreements for its expanding product lines.
LOOKING FORWARD
The Zamoras are expecting much bigger volumes of orders in the months ahead now that Evelyn and an uncle Ric are handling the marketing for the family's chart business. To reach a wider market, she has also created an e-mail account and a Multiply account for the company.
they are now in talks with a bookseller in Brunei to sell their charts there. They are working on a deal with a major bookstore for distribution of their charts in its outlets.
CONTACT DETAILS:
Indigo Baby
Showroom: Gallery Medusa
120 Capt. Manzano St. corner N. Domingo St., Brgy. Pedro Cruz, San Juan
Telephone: (02) 725-9285
E-mail: indigo.manila@gmail.com
Website: www.indigomanila.multiply.com
DS Pinoy Moringa Enterprises
Mobile: (0905) 342-2256; (0918) 800-1728
Website: www.dspinoymoringa.multiply.com
Jevzam's Enterprises
3214 Gen. T. De Leon St, Teacher's Village
Karuhatan, Valenzuela City
Telephone: (02) 444-0719
Mobile: (0919) 375-0222
E-mail: chartsunlimited@yahoo.com.ph
Website: http://chartsunlimited.multiply.com
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