Three motorbike enthusiasts are embarking on a journey to change the lives of sari-sari store owners or “sari-preneurs”.
Bing Tan, Hubert Yap and Ibba Bernardo conceived the idea for Packworks while delivering solar panels to remote areas. Riding their motorbikes, they experienced firsthand how sari-sari stores were very accessible even in isolated areas. They also witnessed that these stores were still using analog process to tally down inventories.
“It started as a motorcycle journey and a passion project to bring solar panels to isolated and far-flung communities. We came up with the idea of helping micro-entrepreneurs by bringing scalable and accessible technology to them. Witnessing firsthand the challenges brought by limited access to sari-sari store owners, especially in far-flung places, we promised to share their technical know-how and inspire them to shift from analog processes to using technology,” says Bernardo, who serves as the chief marketing officer.
Seeing this pain point, the co-founders developed an open platform for sari-preneurs that would enable the value chain and empower all the involved parties within the sari-sari ecosystem. They formed a startup called Packworks in 2018 with initial five sari-sari store-partners which eventually grew to a 150,000 network. They aim to have 220,000 store partners by end-2022, 550,000 by end-2023 and over a million in the coming years.
“Packworks’ target is to onboard the million sari-sari stores in the Philippines,” says Bernardo. “In 2024, we plan to expand to Indochina. With our robust growth, our goal is to raise a Series-A round in the next couple of months.”
“The platform has now transformed into a way out of poverty for the millions of sari-sari store owners across the Philippines,” says Bernardo, who is also a social entrepreneur and motorcycle journalist.
Packworks provides a business-to-business platform that is easy to use, has low bandwidth and light footprint that allows sari-sari store owners to become more efficient in managing their business, he says.
“By bringing technology-based solutions to one million Filipino sari-sari stores, Packworks is driving toward a more progressive, connected and inclusive Philippines,” says Bernardo.
Sariprenuers can use the Packworks application for inventory management, order supply for their stores, track their sales and revenue and monitor their customers’ dues. They can also use e-payments like GCash and Maya for their orders.
Bernardo says using the Sari IQ Data Dashboard, sari-preneurs can track the trends on the products they prefer to purchase or what their customers want to buy. “Our brands and partners can see the graphs and trends on our platform, where they can have an in-depth look at how their products are doing with sari-sari stores,” he says.
He says 20 percent of the sari-sari stores in the Philippines are now using the Packworks application. “We help them grow their businesses by using our application to input inventories, track their customers, use it as a POS machine where they can input the barcode of their products and scan it, order supplies and have them deliver on their doorsteps and have promo codes and loyalty points that they can use to order. With these, the sari-preneurs can have additional capital for their stores. They can also use e-payments like GCash and Maya to pay for their orders,” he says.
Packworks recently closed a $2-million seed funding, led by end-to-end logistics group Fast Group and global private equity firm CVC Capital Partners, with participation from ADB Ventures, Arise, Techstars and IdeaSpace Foundation.
Packworks plans to use the fund to develop The Pack: SuperStore App—a one-stop app for all sari-sari store needs, increase the breadth of offerings and improve its user journey. It also plans to build a department that directly engages the sari-sari stores and provide additional services with partners, and build an open platform for financial institutions and brands to connect directly with store owners.
The super app is designed for inclusive connected commerce where sari-sari store owners can use the POS system to track all purchases, bookkeeping for timely and accurate accounting, inventory management for efficient monitoring, data analytics for business intelligence and delivery and collections systems to simplify operations, according to Bernardo.
“It will improve the user experience and the user interface of the app. It will provide additional services to our partners and build an open platform for financial institutions and brands to connect and deliver value to the sari-sari stores,” says Bernardo.
Brands and partners may also track the movement of their products through the app by monitoring the priority commodities sari-sari store owners buy and the number of sales. “Based on our review, the app provided up to 51 percent increase in brand sales, up to 200 percent GMV year-on-year growth, and they were able to track two times more movement at certain pandemic events,” he says.
Bernardo enjoys sharing his knowledge on entrepreneurship, business strategy and innovation as a mentor and speaker. He is in the board of three technology companies. In his spare time, his passion lies in bringing technology to marginalized communities with projects like the Solar Energy Foundation’s Ride for Light, which brought solar energy to far-flung, off-grid areas.
His co-founders are Tan, who serves as the chief executive and Yap, the chief platform officer.