"I Sell. I Ship. I Teach."
Her calling card is as straightforward as she is. Eireen Diokno-Bernardo has been one of my closest friends who I have known for over a decade. I met her way back in 1998 when we were yet neophyte stock market traders. Back then she had always been an eye-catcher without meaning to. Her beautiful young face and vibrant personality has caught the attention of a lot of our male colleagues and one of them was lucky to become her husband. Angelo Bernardo, now her husband and lifetime partner in her eBay business are now the famous power couple in the industry of e-commerce.
Being the power seller that she is now is not an accident...and it wasn't easy nor did it happen overnight. The stock market took a plunge in 1993 which made us all shift careers. She was about to give birth when the company that Angelo was working for decided to downsize. This has urged Angelo to seek another way to earn an income and they discovered the wonderful world of eBay. Online trading then was not as famous as it is now. It was just a budding industry that only Americans knew off and very few Filipinos knew about. They started their first venture by auctioning rare currency - Filipino coins and notes that had a distinct feature about them that they could resell for a higher value. "Collectibles" is their term for it. Pretty soon their business grew and they started trading other rare items.
Since then they have been auctioning and selling various collectible items. Memorabilia like Banderitas from the Muhammad Ali Boxing Fight (held in Araneta Colosseum way back in 1975) and authentic Nazi armbands in which they made a lot of money selling in 2006 when the dollar was still valued at $56 to a peso.
I remember that one of their most significant sales was from a lot of Coke bottles that they sold. It was a rare edition of Coca Cola bottles (World War 2 edition) that was recovered from a shipwreck from Philippine waters in 2002. For some reason, someone from overseas had a fancy in collecting these. During those times, I had the pleasure of communicating with her everyday and she told me thru casual conversations on how she ran her business. With the sale of these collectible items they were able to earn money for her child birth. She was able to afford giving birth to her first son, Angelo Ezequiel, thru C-section in St. Luke's Hospital. From then the business expanded and right now they have at least 4 virtual stores that Eireen is managing.
When I first heard about virtual stores it raised a big question mark in my head. What on earth is that? She made the concept of online selling quite easy for me to understand. Retail selling requires a physical store (like the ones you see in the mall) to be able to sell physical goods or a service. A virtual store functions quite the same way except that the store you will see is on the internet. It is not the typical wood and brick store. Online you are given a space to display your wares and do your transactions with the aide of the internet. This makes trading faster, more efficient and global. You are not limited to the geographical boundaries of your country and your store can be viewed by anyone online.
Building their stores was quite an uphill battle. She went thru the rudiments of searching for items to sell online and it was a series of market testing. "Will this sell or will it not?" She finally found her true passion by selling Filipino made items. The typical Eireen I know is so down to earth and nationalistic that she has a great pride on her Filipino roots. She is not aprehensive to show her love for anything Filipino made and it shows with the quality of the goods she sells on her virtual stores. Last time I spoke with her, she is personally assembling a Filipino native Blaan costume ordered by one of her clients from Canada. She painstakingly researched the intricate details of the design to make it fully authentic. Even if the item was labor intensive, she didn't mind hand sewing the costume herself. She is the hardworking woman that I know who has a bottomless supply of artistic creativity and patience.
It makes you stop to wonder how this woman can manage her time between all 4 online stores, have time to take care of the kids and play mean games of Airsoft (where she goes by the monicker of "Madame Sangre"). Well, as our mom's e-group fondly call her, she is after all a Supermom. She even finds time to hold webinars about how to open your Paypal account and trade on eBay. Oh did I forget to mention that she is instrumental for bringing the general understanding of Paypal to the Philippines? If it were not for her Filipinos may never know what to do with their Paypal trading accounts or would they have known what Paypal is all about. With her patient negotiations with Unionbank, Paypal is now available for a lot of Filipinos and this has opened a gateway for convenient trading on eBay and on the internet. She has done several magazine interviews in her campaign to promote eBay and even appeared on TV alongside famous showbiz celebrities who do online trading. Her efforts did not go unnoticed abroad. She was invited to do a radio interview in the States because of all her accomplishments, one of them being one of the power sellers on eBay.
If I were to describe her in a nutshell, I'd say she is like a diamond. She is worth a lot more than what you see. Like a diamond, her brilliance is brought on by her many facets. She is more than just a Power Seller, E-commerce specialist, a wonderful teacher, a sharp shooter, a Powermom, a daughter you will be most proud of...and most of all one of the most precious friends that I ever had.
