Social networking website Multiply
ocial networking website Multiply.com will transform into a fully fledged e-commerce platform next year after nearly a decade of being a hit with bloggers.
Stefan Magdalinski, CEO of Multiply Inc., said that the web company would officially introduce the new version of Multiply within three months after December, reaffirming that the re-branded version of the platform would be devoid of social networking services.
Multiply announced in August that as of Dec. 1, the web company would deactivate its social networking and content sharing services, giving roughly four months for bloggers to retrieve their data.
He added that “a big part of 2013 would be about improving customer experience on our e-commerce platform”, including the addition of payment channels to their current six, which include Klik BCA and Mandiri ClickPay.
“One of the things we want to do during the transition is strengthen security,” Magdalinski said, adding that the company would comply further with common security practices for e-commerce websites.
Daniel Tumiwa, country manager for Multiply Indonesia, added that the company would also focus on improving the shopping experience for buyers who visited Multiply Indonesia. He said that this included working with logistics companies and ensuring that buyers could track their orders, as the website had seen a rapid growth in orders from outside the island of Java.
“We aim to make Multiply.com the largest e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia,” he said, adding that the company planned to expand the e-commerce platform, currently available in Indonesia and the Philippines only, to other countries in the region. “There is still a large market for e-commerce because the market is not saturated yet,” he said.
Multiply, despite complaints from long-time bloggers, has stuck to its plans to drop their social networking services because other social networking websites, namely Facebook, dominated the market. “When it comes to social network websites, it’s a winner-takes-all game,” he said.
Launched in 2004 in the US, Multiply started out as a social networking platform through which bloggers could share text, photos and videos. After noticing e-commerce activities by users in Indonesia and the Philippines who sold items through Multiply, the company moved their headquarters from Florida to Jakarta earlier this year, to focus on e-commerce.
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