The Neighborhood Store: Entrepreneurial Moms Sell at Home

I don’t know about other cultures, but where I’m from every suburban collection of houses will have a few neighborhood stores, or simply “sari sari” stores. These are usually located where a home owner’s garage is supposed to be. All the merchandises are jam packed on shelves to save space, but the vendor seems to know where each item is and can grab one and get it for the buyer in the space of a heartbeat.

The good thing about having a store like this in your own home is that you get to spend more time with your family while you earn. The store will have to be opened early to catch the early risers who happen to walk by to get breakfast bread (pandesal) from the neighborhood bakery. Because bread isn’t usually eaten on its own here, they will need stuff like peanut butter, butter, some ham for frying and lots of eggs.

You’re going to have to be extremely sensitive to the wants of these people. You have to know which items sell fast and which are specialty items that people buy only at certain days (like monggo or mung beans during Fridays, and alcoholic beverages during the weekends).

If you’re keeping a medium to large operation, you might want to get a ls2208 barcode scanner to make the selling process easier. You will also need a few competent helpers to serve as “gofer” for things that have to be prepared like a bag of ice or loads of charcoal.

The thing is, a neighborhood store will most likely have a lot of things that ordinary housewives would want to keep their household going, and you don’t even have to advertise about your store. More often than not, word about you will spread when people start thinking of your store as the most convenient way of buying what they need, when they need them.