impositions of community quarantine, the Company saw a massive shift of HOD’s primary market to households. This
shift necessitated a quick recalibration in the HOD business model to cater multiple drop-off points and provide an even
better service for our partners and customers.
Coca-Cola Philippines has extensively scaled up its e-commerce presence to better respond to consumers whose needs and shopping behavior have altered due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With transportation and mobility affected, the Company has ensured that it can continue to serve people with its portfolio of beverages just a few clicks away.
Coca-Cola’s e-commerce website www.CokeBeverages.ph was first launched in 2015. To meet the constraints of the pandemic and to adapt to homebound Filipinos’ needs, the Company accelerated its digital and e-commerce roadmap–strengthening existing infrastructure and opening new channels to connect with the market. Thus, demonstrating agility as a total beverage company, with consumers always top of mind.
“Shoppers of all ages are ordering via their phones and computers, out of necessity. They are now purchasing differently, given the increased need in convenience,” said Kichi Roxas-Chua, Digital Shopping Marketing Manager of Coca-Cola Philippines. The Company observed that lockdowns in many areas in the country have triggered a digital buying wave, with the emergence of contactless shopping options including “click-and-collect” or curbside pickup, takeout, and delivery for restaurants, e-grocery shipments, and more.
Along with strengthening the capabilities of www.CokeBeverages.ph, the company has also ramped up collaborations with food aggregators and other e-commerce partners such as Grab, Lazada, Great Deals, Metromart, and Lalamart–maximizing ways to offer products while offering better deals to consumers, as with new packaging options like convenient multipacks and combos.
“Digital commerce is a fast-evolving space, and as a company, we have to be agile and quick to adapt and evolve–to meet new variables affecting the market, and most importantly to cater to our customers,” said Katie Li, Commercial Digital Marketing Manager of Coca-Cola Beverages Philippines, Inc. (CCBPI), the bottling arm of Coca-Cola in the country. She added that Coca-Cola is exploring various business models to further push e-commerce in the business-to-business (B2B) space.
Happiness on Demand
Coca-Cola’s strengthened digitalization includes its expanded home delivery service called Happiness on Demand (HOD), which allows consumers spanning Nueva Ecija to Metro Manila to Batangas to order Coca-Cola products via call or SMS and have it delivered straight to their doorstep.
Happiness on Demand had catered to a good mix of households and office spaces–but, from the initial impositions of community quarantine, the Company saw a massive shift of HOD’s primary market to households. Distribution channels, which had primarily catered to water deliveries, also needed to widen their scope, as more products from the portfolio saw more significant demand in online platforms. Joseph Crisol, Senior Manager of Emerging Channels at CCBPI shares “This market shift necessitated a quick recalibration of our Happiness on Demand business model to service multiple drop-off points, as well as the improvement of the logistics capacity of delivery partners. We had to ensure that we adapted quickly so we could provide a better service model for our partners and customers”.
Integral to this new system was building up the ability of partner distributors to adapt not only in the context of a widespread change of market behavior but also concerning the need for public safety measures. This approach also saw Coca-Cola subsidizing personal protective equipment to delivery partners, among other initiatives, as it helped partners recalibrate their processes for the new normal.
Additionally, the beverage brand has been working together with partners to boost their capabilities to adapt to the new normal, expanding product knowledge through understanding current market information and data, and purchase patterns and trends. With this, Coca-Cola’s partner distributors have harnessed the huge potential in the HOD market–and this has helped them further grow their business in an otherwise difficult time
With the Company’s digitization timeline accelerated, Coca-Cola is making sure that more efficiencies will be developed, and business models will be expanded geographically to reach more consumers across the country in the long-term.
For more information, visit www.CokeBeverages.ph. For Happiness on Demand inquiries and orders, please contact +632 8 813-2653 or SMART/PLDT Toll-Free Hotline: 1-1800-1888-2635; GLOBE Toll-Free Hotline: 1-800-888-2635.