The lowly sari-sari store gets a lift

OF all the Aquino men, it is Paolo Benigno "Bam" Aquino IV — with his black-rimmed glasses — that looks most like Ninoy Aquino. Ever since he's had to wear glasses when he was in Grade 6, people have been coming up to him telling him he looks like his uncle, the hero.
What's interesting is that it was the other Aquino hero, his aunt — former President Cory Aquino, whose work in her post-presidency years was in micro entrepreneurship — that is more similar to what Bam is doing now.
Bam Aquino, who chairs Micro Ventures Foundation, and his group's Hapinoy Program recently won the grand prize and a $25,000 grant from MasterCard in "Project Inspire: 5 Minutes to Change the World."
A joint initiative of UN Women Singapore and MasterCard, Project Inspire was launched in March to celebrate the 100th year of International Women's Day and MasterCard's 25th year in the region. About 450 NGOs submitted entries — a five-minute video explaining their projects.
It was providential for Bam that a friend of his from another NGO working on human trafficking sent his group an online link to the contest site. Bam didn't make a major production out of his entry. He just sat in his office, his colleague switched on her webcam and began filming as Bam extemporaneously explained the four-year-old Hapinoy Program.
"Hapinoy Program is a social enterprise program," he says. "What we do is we help the microfinance industry to make sure the capital they provide to their borrowers goes a long way. We do business development for the poor. There is financing for them coming from microfinance groups but not business partners and that gap wasn't being filled."
Micro Venture Foundation's microfinance partner CARD MRI, founded by Magsaysay Awardee Dr. Aries Alip, lends money to women only ("because women pay back the loans and men don't — and that's a worldwide statistic," says Bam) to open or supplement their sari-sari stores and then Bam's group comes in to train them and bring them together so they can get better deals from companies that would otherwise not pay attention to such neighborhood retailers.
"The Hapinoy Program has two layers: the community grocery and the sari-sari store. We have about 10,000 sari-sari stores in our network and any store can join in voluntarily and for free. The question is, how can we create more value? We aggregate them, we negotiate on their behalf for discounts and for promotions with companies such as Coca-Cola, Smart and Unilever (which produce most of their inventory)."
Bam says there are about 800,000 sari-sari stores in the country. "If you look at the retailers, there's SM on one end and the sari-sari stores on the other. If you put together all of the sari-sari stores, they will outsell all of the SMs combined. And that's a very interesting fact. When you put together all the small ones, they will beat the biggest ones. There is power there."
Bam says that on the organizing side, there's a lot of training for storeowners' personal development, self-esteem, and changing their worldview. "Our foundation does the training of the 'nanays' to change their mindset and perspective and that's not easy.
"Basically the poverty mindset is, 'Mahirap ako, kailangan mo akong tulungan.' We go from there to an empowered mindset, which is, 'Kahit mahirap ako, kaya kong tumayo sa sarili kong paa.'"
Sari-sari store capitalization can be from only P3,000 to P5,000 to stock up on basic SKUs and earnings can be from 10 to 15 percent. He clarifies that the store is usually a supplement to the family's income since the average take is only P500 to P1,500 a day and profit from P100 to P150. It's not unusual for stores to stay open for only a few weeks or until the inventory runs out and the capital has been spent elsewhere, prompting another moniker for such enterprise: sara-sara store.
"Nobody does business development for the poor," says Bam. "They didn't finish high school, they don't know anything about running a business, managing revenue and profit. It's fudgy at best."
They teach the storeowners inventory management, visual merchandising, customer relations, and financial management — basic book keeping and understanding their financial situation.
Working with the nanays: With the grant money, he plans on expanding Hapinoy to more communities. They teach storeowners the principles of inventory management, visual merchandising, customer relations, and financial management — basic book keeping and understanding their financial situation.
"These are high-tech terms but when you say, for example, visual merchandising, it's just 'O, 'nay, ha, yung mabenta dapat nasa harap, yung makukulay ilagay mo dito, yung mabagal gumalaw ilagay mo sa likod. Kung may produktong malapit nang mag-expire ilagay mo sa harap.
"We teach them that sales is not profit. So if you sell P5,500, you can only spend the P500, which is the profit. Sometimes you think your cash is the profit. We teach them a basic business principle, which is separating the money of the business from the money of the family. Kung kukupit ka, kailangan mong ilista yon."
And then there's the perennial headache of every sari-sari storeowner: the pa-lista or utang.
"Our modules are fun when it comes to utang," says Bam. "We put up a picture and say, 'O, nanay, yan ang kapatid mo, magbi-birthday yung anak niya next week. Ang asawa ay OFW na nagre-remit tuwing 15th and 30th, yung birthday ay sa 11th pero wala siyang pera. Papautangin mo ba o hindi? Siguro pwede kasi may darating siyang pera.'
"That's how basic our training is but it really helps. The foundation of all these different business skills is a change of mindset about themselves to build their confidence. Eventually, what we see is when the nanays become successful is that the tatays get involved. It becomes a catalyst for less business-y stuff and more social stuff. It's the gateway to the development of the family and community. They also make better decisions when there's money."
Apparently, they also have better sex.
"In fact, in one of our evaluations, one nanay said that because of Hapinoy their sex life improved. So we asked her, how did that happen? And she said they were no longer fighting because there was money."
Bam clarifies that they work with the mass poor (D class), not the poorest of the poor (E class). "Majority is actually D and it's a disservice to them if you give them dole-outs. That's a very major belief for us: Ang masa needs opportunities more than they need dole-outs."
So what is Hapinoy doing with the P1 million ($25,000) grant? Bam is expanding the program. Right now it's in 160 communities in South Luzon. "We expand where our microfinance partners are. The farther you are from Manila the better the program gets for you because we solve problems of access to goods, distribution, and the costs become cheaper. We have some nanays in Bicol who service the fisherfolk communities so their customers live on boats. Or in Laguna, the communities are up on Mt. Makiling. So the more remote you are the more you will benefit from the program." (The Philippine Star)