Buko Ventures is excited to invest in DumDum, the first dedicated e-commerce platform for Korean products in the Philippines.

Korea is one of the most impressive economic success stories of the last 100 years. In 1960, Korean GDP per capita was one of the lowest in the region, lower than Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines. Today it's one of the wealthiest large countries in Asia. It has also become arguably the pop culture leader of Asia. K-Pop (music), K-Drama (tv and movies), K-Beauty (cosmetics), and K-Fashion are all incredibly popular across the region. For many young Filipinos, their first trip abroad is to make a pilgrimage to Korea with a detailed itinerary of coffee shops and local landmarks in Seoul that feature in famous scenes from their favorite Korean TV shows and movies.

On the leading e-commerce marketplaces in the Philippines Lazada and Shopee, Korean brands often feature as the most popular brands across a variety of consumer categories, but the assortment is still limited. There are hundreds of popular Korean brands and product categories that aren't easily available locally in the Philippines, and buying directly from Korea requires paying expensive shipping fees, figuring out Korean payment methods and translating Korean language websites.

Still, taking matters into their own hands, many K-Fans in the Philippines self-organize “Group Buys” of Korean products, pooling their money together and coordinating over Facebook to buy from e-commerce sites in Korea and split the shipping cost. DumDum's mission is to formalize this process and make Korean products more accessible for Philippines consumers. The founder and CEO Cee Marbella, knows the market well, having organized informal Korean Group Buys for years with friends and family.

With wholesaler contacts already in Korea excited to expand into the Philippines, Cee plans to offer a wide assortment of popular Korea cultural products from K-Pop album art, to K-Drama memorabilia, and a variety of other hard to find Korean products. Best selling products will be brought into the Philippines in advance to enable fast local delivery, and longer-tail assortment will ship from Korea taking advantage of purchasing and logistics economies of scale as DumDum’s customer base grows.

Cee has already launched a beautiful and engaging e-commerce site offering a fun and immersive shopping experience dedicated to K-everything. She’s tracking Korean culture and the latest product launches carefully to keep DumDum’s collection fresh and updated with the newest releases. Within just a couple weeks, DumDum is already seeing lots of demand and we’re very excited about the opportunity going forward.  

If you're a fan of Korean culture in the Philippines, check out DumDum’s recently launched e-commerce site here and follow them on Instagram here.