by Celia Pascual, SERDEF Media Bureau
Who hasn’t heard of Natasha, the direct selling company, whose numerous dealers and agents go office to office or door to door to sell shoes, bags, apparel, and accessories? And who hasn’t been convinced to look at its colorful catalogues and finally succumbed to the temptation of buying one or two items, because they are oh so accessible and can be had on installment?
The direct selling industry is highly competitive and dominated by multinationals (Think Avon. Think Amway. Think Tupperware). Natasha stands out in that it is home-grown and owned, 100 per cent, utilizing local materials and local craftsmanship.
Over the years since it began in 1993, Natasha has survived the tight competition, the Asian financial crisis and two historical upheavals and has grown steadily to reach people all over the country through a network of 42 distribution centers and 150,000 direct dealers all over the country from Aparri to Tawi-tawi.
Credit its sustainability and growth to the survival instincts and enterprising ability of is owner and CEO, Victoria “Vicky” Bello-Jardiolin.
Vicky obtained her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in business administration from the University of the Philippines, Diliman. In the 1980s, she taught marketing in the same school, where she also researched on entrepreneurship, small and medium industries, and cooperatives. She also worked as consultant at Sycip, Gorres & Velayo.
First business attempts
Vicky wasn’t an instant business success. She started many ventures that did not exactly flourish. On hindsight, she saw these experiences as critical preparation for her later, bigger projects.
She started a garment business in the late 1960s with a co-professor, but it didn’t last because of “other priorities” that demanded her attention. Then she put up a snack mobile store called “Some Like it Hot” which made good enough profit, but was tedious to maintain, with the daily routine of loading the vans each morning. One day, one snack van caught fire.
When she went to Germany on a scholarship grant, Vicky asked her mother take over the snack mobile business.
And then there was Confetti
Back home in 1984, her sister Yolanda Bello Pajaro, who owns the upscale Via Venetto shoe company, offered Vicky half of the 200-sq m store space she got at the original Greenbelt Mall in Makati. “I know my business and I will teach it to you,” Yoly assured Vicky.
Vicky called the new shoe boutique Confetti – and it didn’t take long to be successful and well-known too.
Vicky knows very little about making shoes and does not try hard to understand the production side. What she did was to provide samples or pictures of shoes to Marikina shoemakers who would manufacture these for the Confetti boutiques.
Confetti has thus become the link between the customers and the manufacturers.
“We used man-made materials designed to be worn by class B people. We had to teach Marikina shoe makers to treat the materials with respect and make fashionable shoes out of them. Our ideas for shoes were drawn from fashion magazines, visits to trade fairs, and visits to fashionable boutiques in fashion centers abroad. So, Confetti shoes were trendy but unbelievably affordable.”
Though she stayed clear of production, Vicky brought into the business her international exposure and academic discipline of continuing product research, customer surveys, and marketing.
Natasha, the direct selling company, came after the success of Confetti, the boutique chain.
Entrepreneurship can be a lonely calling, Vicky muses. “Ikaw na ang boss, ikaw pa ang busabos.” But being en entrepreneur allows you to help others make a living.
This is true of Confetti. But doubly true for Natasha.
Natasha: for people with dreams
Encouraged by Confetti’s success, and wanting to cater to the C and D crowd, Vicky put up a new retail store she named Natasha. To get near her targeted customers, she located the store at a mall along a main thoroughfare. The expected crowds didn’t turn up, however. This was in 1994, the time of the power crisis of six to eight hours duration at a time. People were not going to the dimly lighted malls for fear of safety.
Vicky did the best out of a bad situation by converting Natasha into a wholesale company. By wholesaling, it would sell to dealers who would then resell the products to their end users. At first, she gave a few dealers about a dozen pairs of shoes to start their respective business with. That was how Natasha’s networking selling strategy began.
Vicky’s children pitched in to develop the networking system. Vicky would herself personally sell shoes to her friends and acquaintances. A son worked on developing the dealer network. A daughter took charge of selecting the merchandise, while a son took pictures of the products . The first Natasha catalogues were done by members of the family.
Soon, Natasha was selling, through its network of dealers, not just shoes but also T-shirts, pants, wallets and bags, and, lately, cosmetics and fragrances.