Less than a year after its launch in November, the collectibles marketplace Toki continues to explore growth strategies and ways to build a strong, trusted brand.
At a media meetup held at the Toki office in Taguig, three of the co-founders — Zoe Ocampo, Jules Jurado, and Frederic Levy — highlighted their efforts to prioritize trust and credibility by implementing a stringent verification process for sellers and items on their online platform.
The founders, who are alumni of fintech giant GCash, are collectors themselves and have a deep understanding of the community.
“After our stint in GCash, we were interested in venturing into e-commerce as some of our friends have been successful in that sector,” Levy said.
To launch their project, the Toki founders commissioned a study by GMO Research, which found that the Philippine collectibles market has an estimated value of $5 billion. While there are physical stores for collectibles, a significant number of transactions are conducted online, albeit informally.
“Our study also revealed that everybody collects,” Levy said. “There is no specific generation that collects more than another. The only difference is what they collect. For example, luxury watches attract a specific demographic, while Pokémon items have different buyers and sellers.”
Building trust
“Trust is our No. 1 value proposition,” Levy said.
Currently, the marketplace is community-based and maintains limited categories. Toki has onboarded 200 sellers so far.
“We implement ways to detect fraudulent sellers,” Ocampo explained. “Before any legitimate seller can onboard on the platform, we verify their identity, the authenticity of the items they sell, and the claimed value of their collectibles. We can guarantee our user base that these are legitimate sellers.”
Toki ensures that they deal with legitimate collectible sellers and not just ordinary collectors looking to offload their items. This strategy helps maintain the quality and authenticity of the items. The founders stressed the importance of carefully vetting and verifying each seller to maintain trust and authenticity, rather than rapidly expanding the number of sellers.
Quality standards
Regarding item verification, Jurado explained that they have different verification processes for each category to ensure authenticity, providing users the peace of mind that their hard-earned money won’t go to waste.
Toki offers search functionality to help buyers find the products they are looking for, rather than just relying on social media channels. The platform enables sellers to display their physical inventory and setup, which can help build credibility for semi-professional and professional sellers.
To ensure a safer marketplace for users, Toki has defined clear quality standards and policies for different product categories to set expectations and build confidence for buyers.