NUNA Launches First PH Store at Greenbelt 5 Makati

A few days ago, Nuna, the worldwide leader in premium quality baby gear just opened up shop at the fabulous Greenbelt 5 in Makati. This is part of their growth plans to make their presence felt in the region and make Filipinos see, feel and touch their best and expertly crafted baby gear in this side of the world. They are first and foremost a Dutch brand, so you would be able to now see in their stores exquisite craftsmanship, timeless designs, as each piece is engineered to cater to the needs of your precious baby.

Here's our video coverage of the launch

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by John Bueno (@kumagcow)

From baby cribs, carriers, push chairs and home products, they'll be on display now at the 3rd floor of Greenbelt 5. This was also witnessed by Richprime Global Inc. and Europlay Distributor's Myrna Yao, their CEO, Lisa Yao their Managing Director, and Greenbelt's very own GM Iza Arcilla plus Marc Ambrocio the OM. 

Celebrities like our boy Rocco Nacino, his wife Melissa Gohing and their cute son Ezren, Model Businessman Fabio Ide and his wife model Danielle Mikayla Oca, Patrick Sugui and wife Aeriel Garcia, plus a few celebrity and mommy influencers also were present to cut the ribbon and share their experiences in using their various Nuna products which they swear have changed their parenting lives. If you have time, drop by their shop and ask what could best fit you and your kids lifestyle.

New JapaNice Stuff from 7-Eleven

I've had so much lovely meals from 7-Eleven especially when I was still in the corporate industry and had to run, finish my meal in under thirty minutes. It is so convenient and I must say, they've slowly rolled out different ready to eat food, even fresh vegan offerings to make sure you're getting good meals every day.

Today is a special day as they expand their international menu with Japanese selections as they launch the 7-Fresh Japanese Rice Snacks which includes Salmon Mayo Onigiri, Tuna Mayo Onigiri, California Maki and Mixed Maki. These items are seen in Japan konbini stores and other Asian countries, now they're making it available in the Philippines so we have choices in over 1,600 7-Eleven stores nationwide.

I'm already looking forward to have the Salmon Mayo and Tuna Mayo Onigiri. This has been something I've been eating every time it's on the menu of any Japanese restaurant I go to. The 7-Eleven version has 2 flaps on it, just take the packaging off and eat up, it's one of my favorites. If you fancy maki's, they've got everyone's favorite the California Maki, for those who prefer different ones, you can get the Mixed option. Best of all, it only costs Php 50 (55 for the Salmon Onigiri). It's cheap, but they use quality ingredients for it which means YOU benefit from it. Don't go hungry in the office, school or at home because you can take this out. 

So guess what's for dinner tonight! :)

Authentic Japanese Sandwiches at 7-Eleven

I thought I've seen it all, but no. See, looks like 7-Eleven stores are now offering Japanese Sandwiches with their 7-Fresh Fuwa Fuwa line and I'm excited to visit the store near my place. They say it's authentic.

This is now available in Luzon branches (understandable because they wanna serve it fresh). Take for starters the Tamago Sando that costs Php 65, it's very popular in Japan conbini stores (convenience stores) and I've seen people get obsessed about it. This in the shelf? I'm pretty sure it'll be out of stock soon. This one in the country use Fuwa Fuwa brand of Japanese milk-egg bread slices that makes sure every piece is fresh, high in protein and selenium, with 0% trans fat so you won't be getting fat with that.

 

They also have the Chicken Katsu Sando (Japanese style Chicken Cutlet sandwich) which can be good for snack or lunch, then paired with 7-Eleven's City Cafe Coffee. It's only Php 75. These authentic Japanese Sandwiches are made by 7-Eleven and partner Nippon Premium Bakery Inc. (makers of Fuwa Fuwa) and it'll be available in select 7-Eleven stores today! If you want to know more, go to 7-eleven.com.ph/whats-new today! 

See IKEA's Life at Home

What does your home look like? What do you think your home needs in order to make it better? How do you live your life at home?

As you know, IKEA is set to open its doors in Pasay City soon. But before that, IKEA wants to know these too so that they would be able to bring modern furniture design that could help Filipinos thrive at home. This helps them understand what we need so they made the effort to talk to several locals who will benefit with IKEA opening at the SM Mall of Asia grounds soon. It's why they had the Life at Home series launched in their official Facebook page recently.

They now know that eating and sleeping is pretty much cookie cutter but there are really stark differences when it comes to culture because we're very sentimental, and always have extended family at home. Your grandma for instance play a role in the lives of everyone in the family, which is not common for other EU or US households and they talked to Filipinos about it. 

Georg Platzer the Store Manager of IKEA Pasay City says "The four dimensions that help us define home are: the people we live with, the things we own, the amount of space we have and the place we live in. Home is a feeling. This fascination helps us to better understand people’s needs, dreams, and challenges, especially for the new markets we enter like the Philippines."

If you want to know more about how they did it, check out the videos here and their website. You would learn a lot how IKEA studies are conducted in the Philippines.

New Spruced Up Store, OPPO F5 at the OPPO Carnival at SM Annex

I couldn't find my excitement when I learned that OPPO is actually doing an event at SM North Edsa Annex a few days ago. It was called OPPO CARNIVAL and there were tons of activities prepared for the public including race car simulations, 360 degree selfies, basketball exercises and a phone launch as they also introduce the OPPO F5. 

They also opened up the new OPPO Store at the mall's 4th floor. It's actually HUGE and very open. You would see it in one go as it's very much an open concept. They invited ABSCBN's Alex Gonzaga and Ronnie Alonte to join the festivities and participate in games for the crowd. It was deafening when they came out of back stage, but both were funny, very game as they did the few games that OPPO prepared for the crowd. Then we got to take a look at the star of the show, this is the OPPO F5!

I like how powerful it is, plus the fact that it takes really good selfies. It was impressive especially on the portrait modes because you could see the bokeh or depth of field. OPPO is employing their own AI on the phone that's already got 16 MP back camera and a 20 MP front one. It runs on Nougat right from the get go so not so much updates afterwards. I've had the pleasure of seeing it ahead of everyone a couple weeks ago when it all was on secret. I wanted the F3 in the past but this one really was on a whole new league. This one is the Black version but I like the Gold one which makes it more premium.

It retails for Php 15,990. If you see the photos yourself you'll say it's worth every penny. I guess for the price you deserve a really good camera, and you'll get exactly that with the OPPO F5.

KUMAGCOW

Fresh Blogs Fast!

Toby's Sports Now Online

It looks like my favorite sports outlet in the Philippines is getting serious about getting Filipinos equipped and ready for a healthy lifestyle as Toby's Sports launches their nationwide campaign called "WE GOT THIS" to promote success in whatever sport or fitness activity you plan to take. They know it's a difficult path, a pretty hard journey to get to your goals and this campaign basically wants to keep you inspired to keep going. The last thing you would ever want to happen is quit, and no matter how hard that goal may be, you would need to continue because we got this. 

To communicate it even better, they just released a video about it which would let you know how you should keep up with you own health and fitness goals. Check this out!

Toby Claudio the President of Quorum International Inc. says "We all go through a lot of things, hardships, trials, problems, but we are here to see them all succeed. We don't just provide the right gear, but also the support they need to attain that goal."

Toby's Sports is about to celebrate their 40th year in the business and now it's more than just a store, but an ally in sports and fitness with the widest range of equipment, footwear and apparel. They also have partnered with different organizations (I'm sure you've been in more fun runs right?) and not only that, they continue to be one so they could improve lives at their capacity. They are also going to make it easier for people to shop at their store. 

They have just recently launched www.tobys.com where they can accomodate your needs 24/7 right at the comforts of your home. They are also giving away free WE GOT THIS shirts for the first 100 customers who would buy from their store. Now go right to their website and check out different brands, equipment, shoes and apparel. If you need to return it, there are tons of LBC stores you can go to drop off stuff, which means no hassle at all. This ease in e-commerce is a welcome addition to the services that Toby's has been providing us all throughout these years.

We got this right?

KUMAGCOW

Fresh Blogs Fast! 

7-11 Opens 2000th Store in the Philippines

Jose Paterno says "We have been doing this since 1984, I think our 1500th store is in Cagayan De Oro and some in Visays because we are expanding in the other islands and we want to concentrate back here and so we're coming back where we started. We're growing fastest in Mindanao, but the habits of the market evolved, and we have expanded our food servings like gourmet Filipino food and other things at CBD's and we have entered the digital age making Cliqq rewards exchanged points with products. In an emerging market we aim to be the physical gateway allowing banks to deputize in broadening financial aspects, quicker and more efficiently. There are ecommerce opportunities, expanding shelf space virtually. We are growing more this year. We now have 40 stores with that decor patterned with the ones in Taiwan. We are the ones who plead no contest to sari sari stores and we only want to sell those that are not sold on these stores to get people. We are expanding in the north as far as Ilocos, and down south in Naga (talking about Luzon) and we have to make sure to support them before we do open. It becomes viable now for testing grounds, for the market, so they put up plants here if it is viable."

Ena Williams SVP of Global Expansions Team 7-Eleven Inc. "We are the largest at 61,550 stores in 18 countries around the world. While our company is global, we remain to make our business adapt to the community. The level of the store growth is phenomenal. I would like to thank our franchisees and our employees for the things they do making this successful. What makes it so successful is that the Philippines was able to mark an unprecedented growth without compromising quality. It's a challenge but they have managed to do that at ease."

Congratulations 7-11! Can't wait to see you in my neighborhood soon!

KUMAGCOW

Fresh Blogs Fast!

UREKA Mega Manila Forum Brings MSME's to Digital Space

UREKA has landed in Manila, and this is good news for SME's.

"This is a wholistic thing that we want to do. The UREKA Mega Manila Forum is going to happen at SM Megamall Megatrade Hall on February 25. We know how there is a growing trend of mobile phones and we already have those ingredients, who needs a platform that would be able to sustain financial inclusion, so we could stay there. We hope to have the SME's benefit from it, to promote your own brand from Baguio, Cebu, Davao and now Manila. This is a mutual effort and team learning so we see the time to do it in Manila because we have partners coming in like Microsoft etc., in order to share our best practices and further enhance the relevance of UREKA and our partners." says Genaro Lopez the Executive Vice President of Union Bank Philippines. 

UREKA is a market place, Shopinas is included and any SME can get started on urekashops.ph as soon as they get to attend in the forum. 

PLDT SME Nation aside from being an enabler, they joined this to educate SME's in the rural places to change Filipino lives. They teach people e-commerce to bring them online so the Philippines won't get left behind. Our neighbors are already heavy and are contributing to their GDP so just imagine the possibilities to our country. We are trying to educate them to promote themselves through social media platforms and how we could get in touch with SME's. We have followed up with our previous attendees and we're asking them to open new channels so while they have physical stores, they could offer it online and support them in their businesses.

UREKA has gone to different cities first because they want inclusive growth and happen first outsuide the metro. This program will also entail help from the consortium members and the government agencies who are now providing services to help them grow. They also have students who they call e-cadets so they help teach the system, so they too can learn practical business experience while helping people with theories of commerce and the things they learned in previous forums.

It's important to provide relevant technology so owners won't get frustrated and this consortium would tell you the ins and outs so you could grow your business in a sustainable way. You will get to disturb giants, but you will understand the whole process with mature technologies and take advantage for affordable, available on demand services so you don't have to spend a lot for technology. Hopefully UREKA will get entrepreneurs to try new technologies, an end to end platform that they offer. You will be asked to bring a few things in the forum so you can get started right away. If you want to register, visit urekaforum.ph/registration and follow the steps accordingly. 

PABLO Opens First Store in the Philippines at Robinsons Place Manila

I've been hearing raves about PABLO since last year when the name kept on being mentioned by bloggers from the Asian region. I've discovered to eat cheese tarts from a different brand last year and found it absolutely unbelievable. For cheese lovers like me, the mix of sweet, salty and the crunchy crust was just an ingenious way of enjoying lovely food in different forms. It was heavenly, like you want to close your eyes and let those small bites permeate on your tongue a little much longer as you internally try and smell it from the inside. PABLO is Cheese Tart Specialty store from Japan. Founded in 2011, it started as a section of an open concept kitchen from Patisserie Brothers (2008) that grew quickly with the help of their creativity plus their premier product the cheese tart.

Masamitsu Sakimoto, Founder and CEO of PABLO

Founder and CEO Masamitsu Sakimoto flew all the way from Japan for the momentous event. This is as he says; a chance for Filipinos to experience their new store concept to let them see freshly baked products whilst the process is happening right before their eyes.

Obviously PABLO came from the name of Pablo Picasso. They did this to coincide with their goal of making sure their audience (YOU) would feel the element of surprise and excitement through these lovely cheese tarts. This is the authentic PABLO experience and they want to make sure that what they're having in Japan would be the same thing you'll love in Manila or any place in the world. I gladly had my first taste of the mini versions of the famous cheese tarts. They call these the PABLO Mini Chocolate, the PABLO Mini Plain and the PABLO Mini Matcha.

The PABLO Mini Chocolate was good. Now I'm a huge fan of chocolates but this was more of a cheese cake rather than chocolate cake. The crust on all of them are perfectly baked. It's crunchy all throughout and it kinda crumbles in all the right moments when you bite into it. The actual cheese and chocolate mixture in the center was like Lava Cake which was cooked on the outside but gooey on the inside. It's not too sweet and you would still smell that hint of cheese still in it. That part was amazing.

The PABLO Mini Plain was just not so plain. It's the epitome of cheese, the thing that's salty and sweet, you could smell it from outside the store. This ladies and gentlemen is a piece of heaven. It's got a thin baked cheese crust on the outside, then the gooey cheese mixture in the center is just going to haunt you for days on end if you don't get a second serving. Don't believe the detractors who think lining up for these lovely cheese tarts isn't worth it because chances are, they're probably no cheese lovers to begin with. This is worth the trip to Manila and if you're asking why people are lining up for it, it's because IT IS GOOD.

For Matcha lovers, don't say I didn't tell you. This is the PABLO Mini Matcha. The Matcha flavor is not too overpowering. Again, this is more of a cheese cake rather than a blob of matcha on top of a crust. It's like that plain one on top with a hint of matcha on it. The specific thing I liked about it is that you could still distinguish that it is a cheese tart. You could smell both, even though it is topped with matcha powder, it won't spoil the whole experience. This came a close second.

The Freshly Baked Cheese Tart is the reason why they have been able to achieve success. If you don't go home with it, it's like watching an orchestra play without strings, it's like racing without wheels on, it's like going to a concert without performers. It's going to be pointless. If you would like to buy one of these, I think they've managed to limit the number of purchases per person. It's that good.

 

Aside from these awesome goodies, they've got Mille-Feuille (a variety of them), Sabrel (cookies), plus really good coffee inside the store. I'd still suggest you take em home instead of staying in the cheesecake looking store as it gets pretty packed from noon til night.

Don't take my word for it. Visit the store today or if you are willing to wait, they're planning to open some MORE stores in a couple of months. PABLO in the Philippines is managed and brought here by Suyen Corporation, the same people who owns Bench, other brands and specialty restaurants in the country. You'll love em cheesecakes here for sure!

For more information about their products:

Pablo Cheesetart Philippines

Like them on Facebook


Visit their official website

https://www.facebook.com/PabloCheesetartPhilippines

Smart Launches New Flagship Stors in SM Megamall

For all things new, Smart certainly won't be left out! The largest telecommunications company with the huge subscriber base just recently launched their new concept store in SM Megamall. Donned with high tech visual displays and customer kiosks, you can now have a more customer centric store at the heart of Mandaluyong City. They used touch screen panels for the usual services, making it easy for those who are changing sim cards, paying bills, changing customer information which you can do in a jiffy.

PLDT Chairman Manny Pangilinan himself tried the stations himself and was pleased at the multitude content available for Smart and Spinnr subscribers. You can easily listen and watch the shows right in the showroom and if you like it, you can get it via your account with friendly Smart personnel assisting you.

If you can do it on your own, it's easy with just a few taps. If you want to change your name or billing address you can do that too. I even had the privilege of watching my favorite band in the world Eraserheads perform their hit songs in 4 different screens, it was surreal!

Smart's representative adds "Why are we here? We're here to talk to consumers with a new world class, new designed store. We're after an immersive one, we want consumers to be engaged. If you are a smart subscriber, we will show you love and hope, but if you are not yet a smart subscriber, you will see the light. You've seen the interactive screens, you've seen the content, the connected fam cam, what is this journey all about? It's this new sleek store, the people who will run it and the ones that genuinely care for you. This is the new Smart!"

If you want to see it in the flesh, just go to the new Smart store at the SM Cyberzone at the 4th Floor of SM Megamall. There are tons of seats and you can watch the videos the whole day so you won't get bored while availing Smart's great services! You'll really love it!

KUMAGCOW

Fresh Blogs Fasst!

Vivo Philippines Opens First Concept Store

Bright and blue, colors that surrounded is at the new Vivo Concept Store in SM Light Mall. The store also houses Vivo's Service Center to cater to its customers in this side of town. They also recently launched the V3Max and V3 smartphones which has practically placed them 5th in IDC, bringing in more reason for them to expand in other regions soon.

The concept store will promote the Vivo brand and showcase their products. It will also be the hub for educating the people who purchase them and if trouble arise, they have a place to go to physically as they implement this starting August 9 and other places in the country very soon.

Vivo Product Specialists will be there to help you in information regarding your phones, technical support, warrantynand repair. There will be more products and offers in the future, stay connected with http://www.facebook.com/vivophilippinesofficial. As they say, they want this to be Faster than Faster!

VP of Vivo Hazel Bascon says "We hope you continue to support us in this new endeavor, we are here to provide the best service as we can.

KUMAGCOW

Fresh Blogs Fast!