Numbers to Take Note

9 in 10 The projected  rate of American companies with at least 100 employees that will use Facebook for marketing purposes by 2014, according to e Marketer study.

2.6 The number of times in a month that the average Filipino city-dweller visited a grocery in 2011 up from 2.2 times in 2010, according to the annual Philippine Shopper Trend Report by global information company Nielsen. The study interviewed at least 1,500 respondents who were both "main grocery buyers and key influencers" in urban locations nationwide.

How to Arrange and Group your Products in Store or Grocery

If you have already established a store or grocery, and you have your personnel assigned to different areas. Now, you have to check these matters, because they will improve sales and customers access to different products offered in your grocery.
Here they are;

1. Space Management. You have to ease the flow of people walking inside your store and searching for merchandise. If all the needed items are arranged on only one or two shelves, then shoppers will cluster in that area. Spread the items around the store so people will move around. Think like customer when you are organizing merchandise. "Don't put mustard in the seasonings section simply because it's made by a company that manufactures seasoning. Put mustard beside the ketchup bottles because people who typically use ketchup also use mustard," You may also want to place new brand of juice beside a popular sandwich spread brand, so customer will notice the new item. A grocery usually has over the counter section. Here, you can place items that are either high in value or require sales people to dispense them. Examples include infant formula milk, personal hygiene products, and liquor. "When customer buys milk, he may not know which one to buy, and therefore wants to ask question about the products. 

Funding, Location, and Staffing needed in Putting Up a Grocery

If you are really planning and ready to invest for a grocery, there are things that you really need to know. Study and carefully consider them, here they are:

• Funding. It needs at least P150,000 as working capital to stack up on initial inventory. Another P150,000 may be required to cover the top three operations related expenses: rent, salary of personnel, and fees for utilities. Don't expect gain within a year; it usually takes "two to five years" to recover your investment in grocery.
• Location. If you plan to open a grocery near school, hospital, or an office. Study the demographics if people in your desired area, study what they need and desires, and this is what your store should carry out and offer them. If you will be located near a hospital, you will be offering, infant formula milk, food, and water which is usually needed by the patient and other people who move in and out from the hospital. The countryside is also a good location for a neighborhood grocery, offer what people often want to eat and drink, what they usually cook and eat for breakfast and dinner. Study their sources of income and their capacity to buy and shopping habits.

Grocery; where the Biggest Part of Budget Goes

Filipinos spend a big chunk of their money on food. This is according to Family Income and Expenditure Survey conducted in 2006 by the National Statistics Office. About 41.4 percent of the household earnings was devoted to food, while 3.7 percent goes to personal care and effects. Alcoholic beverage and tobacco products account for 0.7 and 0.9 percent respectively.

These figure will say a lot about the prospects of having a neighborhood grocery or a supermarket. A grocery sells food and non-food items, and it has a bigger inventory than a sari-sari store. It's like a supermarket, but it needs a smaller area, less staff and fewer check-out-counter.