MANILA, Philippines—The latest online shopping craze in the country does not involve a credit card. In the comfort of your home or office, you can shop for almost anything, from game consoles to personalized cupcakes.

You can get all these at Multiply.com.

Multiply is a website designed for social networking, where you add “friends” (or sister, neighbor, classmate, etc.) to your network, much like what Friendster and Facebook do.

Users can post photos, blog, and maintain their calendars. Doing so creates a semi-customizable personal website without having to bone up on HTML.

Entrepreneurs have taken advantage of the wide range of features the website offers. In my own Contacts, for example, about a fourth are “Business Contacts.” Whenever they post new products for sale, I am notified in my Inbox.

How it works

I have bought a few items off Multiply. Here’s how it works: I window-shop in the Photos section of the seller and, if I see anything I like, I can either click the picture for the price or, if it’s not indicated, I leave a comment asking how much the item is and if it’s available.

Ideally, the prices should be posted with the pictures, or the seller should reply immediately. When a deal is made, the item is reserved for me.

The tricky part for both the seller and the buyer is paying for the items. The most popular payment methods are bank deposit and G-Cash. G-Cash is real-time money-transfer service from Globe Telecom.

There are pros and cons for each of these methods. Bank deposit requires the buyer to go to the branch, line up and make the payment—good only if there’s a branch nearby. After paying, I let the seller know so he or she can check his or her bank account.

Making G-Cash payments means mooching off the G-Cash credits of friends or lining up at a Globe service center to pay for the product. For users of the service, it takes less than a minute to do the transaction through text messaging.

A few sellers have Paypal facilities, but applying for an account takes a bit of effort.

When payment has been made, the seller arranges for my item to be delivered the next day. Normally there’s no glitch, but some delivery services classify the outskirts of Metro Manila (such as Malabon and Taytay) as provinces. That takes two days for delivery.

Risks

As with any online transaction, the risk is not getting what you paid for, or, in the case of sellers, not getting the payment.

Some potential buyers appear to be so enthusiastic about the posted items that the sellers allow them extended reservation time, but they still end up not buying the items. In any business, lost time is lost income.

In rare cases, the sellers are accommodating enough that they ship the items before getting the payment, fully trusting the buyer. Unfortunately, some people just cannot be trusted.

Buyers are usually students who like to find good bargains, young professionals who have the money but no time to shop in malls, and, in general, anyone who has a Multiply account.

Stay-at-home mothers, students, even those employed full-time are benefiting from selling online. All they need is a computer with Internet connection, a camera for taking product pictures, and a great network like Multiply.

There is no need for flyers and other marketing materials, because they reach their target audience directly. The best thing, of course, is it’s free.