2017–2021

Karton.ph: Marketing, Seller Onboarding, Sales Ops & Digital Comms for a Filipino-made Online Marketplace (Startup E-commerce)

Role: Content / Marketing Strategist (startup scope: marketing + sales enablement + ops)
Tools: Google Analytics, Facebook Business Suite, Mailchimp (plus internal trackers)
Commercial streams supported: Website sales • Store/bazaar sales • Bulk gifting / corporate orders

The challenge

Karton needed to grow both sides of the marketplace at once:

Supply: onboard more credible Filipino sellers/products (fast)
Demand: increase customer acquisition + conversions through campaigns, partnerships, and content
Operations reality: fulfill orders, coordinate sellers, and support bulk gifting even with a small team

1. Seller onboarding + pipeline management (sales/partnerships)

Helped scale the seller base and onboarding pipeline—working across outreach, follow-ups, and onboarding readiness.
Seller growth accelerated in 2020, with 83 sellers (Q1) → 139 sellers (Q4) (net +56) as the marketplace expanded.
Managed active pipeline work such as June (+20 sellers), July (+12), August (+5) plus ongoing follow-ups and prospect conversations (categorized by stage).

2. Marketing built for conversion (digital campaigns + ads)

Ran and supported campaigns that paired values-led storytelling (“Filipino-made”) with conversion thinking.
Used ad insights to identify what creatives and themes performed best; top ads in 2020 showed very strong ROAS patterns (30+ in the internal report), indicating highly efficient conversion campaigns for specific product themes.
Supported promo-code / influencer activation tactics as part of monthly marketing execution.

3. Analytics-driven iteration (GA + channel strategy)

Used Google Analytics snapshots to improve decisions on where to push:

Top channel for traffic: social media
Top channel for transactions: referral, with ~7.25% conversion rate
Social conversion rate: ~0.50% (high traffic, lower conversion → needed better landing flows + CTAs)
Flagged funnel friction: cart abandonment ~34–37% and 65–70% of traffic with no cart additions (led to recommendations like cart recovery offers, referral systems, and email/SMS tactics).

4. Sales + operations support (bazaars + bulk gifting + lean-team execution)

Supported sales during bazaars/physical selling, representing the brand and closing sales in-person (important for early-stage revenue).
Helped with operations for bulk gifting orders (prep, coordination, execution support), a critical startup revenue stream.
Contributed to process discipline around customer inquiries and order touchpoints (confirmation, delivery coordination, out-of-stock updates), which is essential to trust and repeat purchase.

5. Brand representation (speaking / media engagements)

Represented Karton publicly in speaking/media contexts to strengthen credibility and trust

FB live videos were later removed, but these posts show public representation.

Marketplace performance (YoY)

+7% year-on-year sales growth (2019 → 2020) and highest annual sales to date (per internal year-end reporting).
+147% increase in website customers (YoY), showing major acquisition lift as the platform matured.
Repeat-customer share tracked at ~11–23% monthly (highlighted as an opportunity for retention campaigns).

Seller growth (counts)

Grew from 83 sellers (Q1 2020) to 139 sellers (Q4 2020) as the marketplace expanded supply and variety.

Funnel + channel insights

Referral conversion ~7.25% vs social conversion ~0.50% → clear direction for partnership/referral strategy.