Barely 3.5 months since it was set up, ECHOstore Sustainable Lifestyle is off to Amsterdam on in January 2009 as one of two Philippine Champions. ECHOstore submitted a concept and won the First Businessplan Competition of the Philippine BiD (Business in Development) Challenge which provides coaching and investor matching for sustainable enterprises. Now on its third year, the Philippine BiD Challenge is done in partnership with Fair Ventures, a Dutch NGO and organized by the Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP). This international competition has produced such sustainable development products for poor communities in Bolivia, Ecuador, Jordan, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Argentina, Peru and Columbia. The Philippines was the first in the world to host its own version of the BiD Challenge three years ago and has helped small or micro entrepreneurs start businesses by helping them with business plans, coaching and even investor partnering.
 

The ECHOstore plan included the flagship store at Serendra, and the Café. Besides retail sales, the ECHOstore will also offer seminars, workshops and mentoring services on entrepreneurship, product development, branding, marketing and packaging. The ECHOstore gondolas is the third part of the proposal. These are miniature versions of the full retail store. The gondolas will occupy a minimum of space- approximately one square meter, 7-feet high, and will be placed in retail stores, duty free shops, hotel lobby stores and other retail environments where people look for gift items from various artisan groups. Products will come from marginalized communities who otherwise have no access to retail markets. All products will be fair trade compliant, environment-friendly and sustainable.
 

Besting 106 entries from the Philippines, ECHOstore emerging as one of eight winners who each got Php100,000 start up capital to further expand the business. Plus they also received a special prize for free one year website hosting for an e-commerce website and payment gateway. And finally, ECHOstore was named Philippine Champion, alongside Rags2Riches (who by the way was the first partner organization whose recycled bags made by women from Payatas were the first products carried by ECHOstore). The three owners Reena Francisco, Chit Juan, and EON's very own Jeannie Javelosa will exhibit the ECHOstore concepts in Amsterdam during the international BiD marketplace on January 27, 2009. There, hopefully, international funding groups and agencies will choose ECHOstore as a viable concept to invest into thus helping develop the ECHOstore sustainable lifestyle commercial and developmental directions.