Additionally, sellers are calling on the DTI to halt its proposed Trustmark system, arguing that voluntary certification is redundant and places an additional financial and logistical burden on micro-entrepreneurs.
Anna Magkawas, president of the Online Entrepreneurship Empowerment Community (ONEC), stated that soaring platform fees (including commissions, transaction fees, and promotional charges) have left many merchants with barely any profit, especially after several platforms added a 5-peso processing fee per transaction.
“First Shopee, then Lazada, and now TikTok has announced a similar surcharge,” Magkawas said in a briefing.
