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Saturday Dec 14, 2024
Saturday, 22 April 2017 00:12 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
BOX-UP, a personal shopping service which makes quality products from any store in Australia accessible to Sri Lankan residents, is celebrating its one year anniversary and 1,000th customer with a pop-up shop at the 
Sooriya Village, Colombo 04, today, 22 April, from 10 am to 3 pm.
BOX-UP is the brain child of two professionals based in Australia, Poorni Fonseka and Venessa Stevenson established with the aim of creating a portal for Sri Lankan residents to purchase affordable and quality products from Australia. It is online portal offering individuals and families a method of purchasing quality groceries, baby products, chocolates, beauty brands, vitamins and a wide variety of organic and sugar-free health food. It also offers personal shopping services for clothing, toys, electronics, designer brands and more from any store in Australia.
Using BOX-UP is simple. Customers can shop items under the above mentioned categories listed online or can tell the boxers what they are looking for via the inquiry form on the BOX UP website, www.boxup.lk. The personal shopper will then source, quote, shop and organise delivery to Sri Lanka by sea or air freight. While sea freight is available at a set fee of 25 AUD for up to 30kg of products and takes approximately six weeks to arrive in Sri Lanka, air freight and express shipping are available on request and the rates vary according to the shipping location and weight of product. Once the product reaches Sri Lanka, customers can pick up the products from Colombo or Wattala. There is also the option of home delivery.
“BOX-UP was in the making for around twelve months. We knew that there was interest from people in Sri Lanka wanting a service of personal shopping from Australia. However, since it had not been done before, we had to brainstorm ways to make BOX-UP accessible, safe and easy for most people. With accessibility, we are currently working on how the online only store can operate to assist customers who are not confident with credit card payments or might not be internet savvy. The main challenge with online stores is trust from customers, which is why a PCI Level 1 approved system called Stripe is relied upon process credit card payments. This is the most stringent program available at the moment,” founders Poorni Fonseka and Vanessa Stevenson said.
The one day pop-up shop will showcase BOX-UP’s best sellers to the public at the Sooriya Village. The products, include a wide range of chocolates, products for mum and baby, juices, beauty products, sugar free food, cheese and more. The pop-up shop will also feature special offers and a chance to win prices.
