Proudly-Pinoy Products for Grabs at Speed Regalo Online

“Our first phase is really servicing the Filipinos here in the Philippines. Overseas Filipinos can order for their families,” says SpeedRegalo, Inc. Chairman Rosemarie Rafael on the presentation of the newest online shopping facility in the country on Thursday. SpeedRegalo, a fresh venture for major shareholder Airspeed International, is an online shopping portal born out of Mrs. Rafael’s hunch to stop by a garden of roses, call up friends who want to order some, and sell them off on Valentines. “They have so much orders that I ordered a lot of flowers,“ says Mrs. Rafael, exclaiming, “Nagtatanggal kami ng tinik until midnight! (We were removing thorns until midnight!)” Though the online shopping store started out with delivering flowers, it offers a variety of products at the best possible rate. Mrs. Rafael notes that, to keep their rates at par with the market, they get someone to compare and make sure the site’s asking price is not higher than that of the local price. “What we’re really proud of are our proudly-Pinoy products,” says Regine Rafael, Communication and Marketing Manager for SpeedRegalo and daughter to Mrs. Rafael. Ms. Rafael expounds on the various categories available for shoppers of SpeedRegalo. Products are divided into various categories, including Proudly Pinoy Products, appliances, electronics, books, groceries, and others. Apart from product delivery, the SpeedRegalo.com.ph also covers a series of services aptly named, Speed Delivery, Speed Advocies, Speed Delicious, Speed Homes, Speed Jobs, Speed Learning, Speed Mail, and Speed Travel. The shop’s Speed Advocacies and Speed Learning services reflect an effort to empower overseas Filipinos’ families by providing basic skills and management modules, and seminars on how to manage money well. “We don’t have our own portal for our payment terms so we do it through the banks; that is secure. Paypal, that is more secure,” says Mrs. Rafael on questions about security. SpeedRegalo requires no minimum purchase and comes with a returns agreement. “It’s guaranteed or you don’t pay,” says Mrs. Rafael, adding that their customer service is something that will differentiate them from other online portals. SpeedRegalo emphasizes the convenience of buying overseas Filipinos’ padala online, and shipping it to their relatives in the Philippines. Before tapping on the popularity of the internet and e-Commerce, the SpeedRegalo team’s eagerness to deliver anything Filipino workers may miss from home was passed through word of mouth. “This overseas Filipino nga ordered butong pakwan from Cagayan, so we had to bring in from Cagayan,” Mrs. Rafael says, speaking of the how an Illinois Filipino worker found their site, while still on beta testing, and had a single packet of watermelon seeds shipped without any fee as the charges were not up on the site yet. SpeedRegalo targets four phases of development, the foremost of which is to help overseas Filipinos send padala to their respective families in the Philippines. Second, help Filipinos locally send to their loved ones abroad. Third, launch a pakipadala mechanism where Filipinos in the country can buy from an online site, have the item sent to SpeedRegalo’s U.S. address, then forward it to the Philippines. Lastly, the online shop aims to reach the global market by having items sent to and from Korea, from Japan to Dubai, and other destinations. When asked if they entertain bizaare requests like shipping a paid item five years from now, she answered, “Yes,” adding with a smile, “I believe we are still here five years from now.” “As long as we have: number one, a very reliable service of delivery; number two, a really good customer service; number three, if we have fairly-priced products, how can we go wrong?” Mrs. Rafael says.