20 Things You Didn’t Know about GrowSari

When you visit the Philippines, you will notice a sari-sari store as you walk through every street. The name sari-sari is Tagalog, which means “variety” or “everything.” They are small family businesses that the locals run. These stores conveniently provide locals and consumers with a place to shop for daily necessities like food supplies, cleaning supplies, and others items that bring people together. Like any other business, this sari-sari also faces challenges regarding inventory procurement and distribution channels of its products, a problem that has been perennial and has affected its growth. GrowSari was established to help solve that problem for millions of sari-sari owners across the Philippines to help them digitize their operations. This article will explain 20 things you didn’t know about GrowSari that have boosted so many traders’ businesses in the Philippines.

1. Year of Establishment

GrowSari was established in 2016 to help sari-sari store owners in three cities around the Philippines. When it began, it was an ordering platform that has now grown to cater to other store owners’ challenges.

2. GrowSari Founders

The people who came together to establish this platform was a team of four individuals, namely Reymund Rollan, Siddhartha Kongara, Shiv Choudhury, and Andrzej Ogonowski. They wanted to address the challenges that traders go through. According to TechCrunch, Reymund, manage%20their%20 logistics%20and%20inventory), the first establishment they launched was based on a backend system to handle logistics and inventory.

3. GrowSari Management Team

GrowSari is a well-run organization that nine executives manage. They include Shiv Choudhury, a Co-founder and Director, and Siddhartha Kongara, a founder and current Chief Technology Officer. Maimai Punzalan is Chief Marketing Officer,Evreem Fortich is Head of Logistics. Ven Guce is the Chief Financial Officer; Andrzej Ogonowski is also a founder official & Head of Platforms. Joseph Dutra holds the Corporate Treasury Operations Head. Molly Dumigpe is Head of Operations, and Joseph Gutierrez is Chief Head of Product, Acceleration & of Staff.

4. How GrowSari makes Money

Growsari combines orders from sari-sari store owners and looks for them at relatively lower prices to make a profit from them.

5. GrowSari Business Model

This establishment is a B2B platform that currently handles a wide range of services to small to medium-sized store retailers. It also continues to offer services to neighborhood sari saris store shops located along the roadsides, market centers, and pharmacies. For instance, GrowSari has a wholesale market Centre that has a wide range of products from significant establishments selling fast-moving consumer products such as Unilever, Nestle, and P&G. According to the Ken, this platform has partnered with over 200 renown providers such as telecoms, subscription plans, and fintech to enable sari saris owners to offer service like bill payments and top-ups to their clients.

5. GrowSari Headquarters Location

This establishment does most of its activities online, but it has a headquarters. It is situated at Work Able,2/F Robinsons Zeta Tower, C5 Road Quezon City in the Philippines.

6. GrowSari Philosophy

The road to speedy growth by GrowSari has been necessitated with better management through its vision and mission statement. They hired a task force to look into ways in which they can set a new performance management system for all staff to follow and hired Appraised to help them. The recommendation they got was applied and tricked down to every employer, which has led to the rapid growth that the company has experienced. Everyone knows their role and duties. This organization has over 400 staff, out of which 100 are stationed at the company headquarters. The rest operate in the field, interacting with local sari saris business owners.

7. Investors supporting GrowSari Growth

Businesses need investors who believe in the company’s vision for it to grow even further. Some investors who have placed their faith in GrowSari include Kohlberg Kravis Roberts of PE/Buyout, a minority shareholder, JGDEV of Corporate Venture Capital minority shareholder, Eden Holdings of Venture Capital, and a minority shareholder. Other minority shareholders include JG Summit Holdings of Corporation and Robinsons Retail Holdings of Corporation. Recent investors to partner with GrowSari are KKR, International Finance Corporation, Pavilion Capital, and Wavemaker Partners. These investors have helped the company raise over $110 million for the business expansion to expand its operation, build the company logistic and fulfillment network and hire competent staff to run the business operation to broader coverage.

8. GrowSari App

GrowSari is a digitizing platform to help small businesses reach a wide range of consumers. They have developed a mobile app that traders can register and down on the app store to carry out their operations effectively. According to Growsari.en.Aptoide, the app is also available for Android phone users, personal computers, and iPhones users. After registering your business with GrowSari, you can connect your business to over 50,000 sari stores situated in over 100 municipalities’ centers on Luzon. According to many users’ reviews, the app works well, and they highly recommend it for others to download and enjoy its usefulness.

9. Features of the GrowSari App

When you register your sari-sari business in the app, you will enjoy the app’s three main features. Firstly is the “Panda” in the GrowSari App, which will assist in all your online ordering process in the grocery section of the app. It will help you find a wide range of items in various sari saris stores, such as canned goods, coffees, alcohol, instant noodles, cigarettes, and quality rice from every region in the Philippines. However, there are certain items you are likely to miss that you will find in bigger supermarkets and groceries. The good news is that you will find most items at lower prices. Secondly, you will enjoy the E-negosyo feature that helps app users purchase prepaid loads using rebates, perform pera padala and settle their bills. For every successful transaction, you perform utilizing the buy load function. You will be rewarded a 5% rebate. Other parts of this feature are buying gaming pins, GCash, and PayMaya cash in. The third function is E-lista which sari-sari stores owners can take advantage of to use a credit line. You can use it to get capital for other operations at no interest cost. Before you use this function, you must meet specific requirements before getting an activation code.

10. GrowSari Branches near Me

GrowSari is spreading faster in many areas. However, currently, if you want to visit their physical branch, you will find them around Metro Manila and the greater region of Luzon. The expansion will soon reach many areas in the country as they plan to expand to Visayas and Mindanao.

11. GrowSari Delivery Charges

Sari Sari’s store owners can sell and order their items online using the app platform. Their deliveries will arrive at no cost if the orders are at a minimum of 500 pesos to help them increase their operating capital. Therefore, business owners can take advantage of their “Elista” offering.

12. GrowSari helps small Business People develop Meaning Synergy

This technology has become a relief to many, especially business people. It is among the few helpful establishments that help store owners create meaningful Synergy in their operations. One can combine being a businessman or woman, community influencers, or homemaker simultaneously.

13. Offers Better Employment Opportunities

GrowSari has helped to solve unemployment in the society in many areas in the Philippines by boosting the sari saris business everywhere on every street. Besides that, this corporation has employed so many people to run its operation across the country. The employment terms come with better packages such as opportunities to advance a career, competitive salaries and allowances, paid leaves, work-life balance, MO coverage, and numerous fun & thrilling engagement activities.

14. GrowSari Graduate Programs

What started as an ordering platform has now developed into covering many areas in society. The corporation is now offering graduate programs to thousands of graduates to learn and progress in their careers. The application process for fresh interested graduates is pretty straightforward. One needs to send their application to GrowSari Inc following these simple steps. Check for a role that suits you and apply for it. The HR recruitment team will look into it; you will be contacted if you are lucky to be shortlisted. The initial interview for a shortlisted candidate is continuously conducted through phone calls or Google meetings. A qualified applicant will then be endorsed and referred to their hiring managers for the following interview process. If you are lucky to pass that interview stage, you will be given a chance to negotiate your job offer. The final process is deployment to your station, and the onboarding process begins. The recruitment process can take close to one and two weeks.

15. Term and Condition of Registering to the GrowSari App

Before a Sari-sari store owner completes the registration process to start using the app, it would be best to familiarize themselves with the terms and conditions before agreeing to its license rules. Ensure that you understand the general rules, restrictions about operations, intellectual property rights, limitations or transfers, use of information, third party content and services conditions, how to use third party content and services, and terms of use and termination. Other conditions to learn to avoid trouble while using the app include a disclaimer of warranties, limitation of liability, indemnification, compatibility, miscellaneous, and the process of claiming products.

16. GrowSari has killed the Middleman in Business Process

After arming most shop owners with this advanced technological app, GrowSari eliminated all the intermediaries who used to take advantage of small business operations and reduce their profits in profit-making ventures. After establishing this platform, it started with handling orders from traders then moved to build a friendly ecosystem to run the business. They started getting orders from traders and doing their shopping, and delivering to them at their retail shop. This elimination process of intermediaries has led the platform to be the most trusted and contributed to its tremendous growth that was improving by 20 to 30 percent monthly.

17. GrowSari Line of Services

GrowSari cares about small business traders across the entire Philippines region. Currently, its services include free next-day goods delivery to their stores, store media management, a working capital loan program called “Pay later” selling prepaid Telco loans, and exclusive manufacturer promotions. This exemplary service delivery has borne fruits for many traders and GrowSari. Tech in Asia reports that businesses are reporting revenue improvement of 20 to 100 percent.

18. GrowSari Contact Information

When you need help from GrowSari regarding anything, you can contact them in various ways, such as phone number 63-92-7375-1080. Write to Address L-29 Joy Nostalg Center ADB Avenue, Ortigas Center, Pasig Metro Manila Philippines. You can also visit their website by login into www.growsari.com. This platform is also available on several social networks.

19. How to Register your Store with GrowSari

GrowSari has over 300 field agents who move around areas where business people are operating to educate them about the importance of registering on this platform. You can fill out a form with them or visit the website to fill it out online. You can also download the app and follow the easy steps of joining the app. Furthermore, you will be good so long as you adhere to the terms and conditions of operating through this platform.

20. GrowSari Market order Process

The marketplace requirement is friendly when a trader places an order through the GrowSari platform. You will not be restricted from setting a minimum charge for the items you want. Additionally, payment is made after your orders have arrived. You can pay through cash or cash credit which you will top up via GrowSari’s shippers. You can also pay through an online transfer system, bank payment, or over the counter at your convenience stores. Another option to settle your payment is E-Lista or try GrowSari’s Loan product for seven days if you meet the terms and conditions.

Final Verdict

You cannot underestimate the importance of GrowSari in the community. It has dramatically impacted many sari saris business owners and empowered them to improve their business through more efficient delivery systems and logistics channels. Its impact has made it recognized among the best 100 companies to watch out for in Asia by Forbes Asia.