30/03/2024
Today is the final day of Greenbelt 1.
It reminds me of the story of how the retail outlets/ discount stores in Philippines began.
It was dubbed as the “Mega Brands Madness Sale”, the first “Branded Bazaar”.
An an event that was ahead of the word “disruptive”, i was born on November 2003.
The first time that major brands agreed to come together at the Expo Exchange Event Center (it was one of the four Cinemas of Greenbelt 1 that was converted, later years it became the space of Digital Retailers).
The event was conceived by a Product Specialist who knew the pain points of multi-national brands. These brands had to release new models and designs to the retail market so that customers will always have new products to choose from and buy.
However, the consumers were challenged with their purchase budgets.
Those were the two pain points of the brands (supply) and consumers (demand) side.
While department stores were already doing 50%-off weekend and payday sales event, the “Mega Brands Madness Sale event was the first one to offer 70%-off, a discount that most consumers thought was not true. Some commented that the products may be fake or damaged items.
Branded products from close to 40 brands included: apparel, footwear, perfumes, intimate apparel, cosmetics, motorcycles, mobile phones, home and office decors and accessories, sports gears and more.
The first day of event in November 2003, saw consumers lining up the spiral staircase of Greenbelt 1, from the ground floor fronting the bookstore all the way to the entrance of the event hall.
One exhibitor, the co-owner of the distributor of the swoosh brand said: “sobrang daming tao, nag-dikit dikit na ang mga mukha sa loob ng hall” (so many people inside their faces are close to one another).
In 18 event days, the “Mega Brands Madness Sale” sold almost P50M for its exhibitors, liquidating and converting out-of-size and past season stocks to cash.
After one year, brands had the idea of creating their own discount/ outlet stores, outside of Metro Manila.
The creator of the “Mega Brands Madness Sale soon stopped producing events. Knowing that he had to move on. The concept was continued by other organizers.
Today, the creator of the “Mega Brands Madness Sale” teaches at the Graduate School across Greenbelt 1.
Thank you Greenbelt 1!
We both did our contribution to the Philippine Retail Industry.
