20 Small Business Ideas in the Philippines for 2014

Posted by Manny on December 24th, 2012

Making a living in the Philippines  can be hard if you are only looking in one direction, and that is, employment. With so much unemployed people in this country, and the age factor, its getting harder and harder to get employed. There are also very few industries in this country and so many new graduates that are seeking employment and most of them end up on the job they don’t like. Most of them end up in supermarkets and department stores as shelf stacker and cashiers, some are call centers agents and fast food crew. If you are an OFW, it’s a fact that working abroad is not permanent and unless you plan to migrate to that country, like for example, in Canada a promise land to many Filipinos and where many have already migrated to escape poverty in this country, you should also be thinking on how to invest your hard earned money through a business.

I’m not saying that creating a business is a sure way to earn a living. There is a blog I read encouraging people to create a business and be an entrepreneur and not telling the truth about the hardships and uncertainty on creating a business. What I can say is, it is a gamble and you are not sure if you will succeed or not. The fact is, 9 out of 10 businesses fail. But on the contrary, if you are courageous enough, has lots of confidence, passion and optimism to succeed, here are the 20 businesses ideas you can choose:

1) Rice retailing business – since rice is our staple diet and a necessity, it is hard to think even one Filipino will not buy rice. Every Filipino eats rice unless you are born and living in Canada or USA, your staple diet is bread. Or if you live in the remote province where people can’t afford rice and makes sweet potatoes, corn or cassava as their staple diet. Starting this business does not require a lot of capital and a minimum of 30k is enough but some rice sellers advise that a capital of 60k is the minimum to make the business profitable. Aside from getting a business permit, you also need to secure licences in DTI for single proprietorship or SEC for partnership or corporation and also a licence from NFA.

2) Pandesal making business – or should I say set up a bakery business but what I have in mind is selling only pandesal. So why pandesal only? Pandesal is a common bread eaten at breakfast and it is second to rice which is a staple diet. It can be also eaten as merienda or snacks. You don’t need to learn baking various bread and cakes on a bakery you will set-up so you can concentrate on one product. But just be sure your pandesal is quality bread and not selling it just for profit because it is the taste and quality people are after. I have a neighbor whom I bought pandesal in the morning every other day and I asked his helper how many pandesal they sold every morning, he said 1,000 to 4,000 pcs.

3) Food Cart business - many Filipinos are very interested going into this business and most of them, when they hear or see a food cart, what they have in mind is “franchising”. But come to think of it, why will you franchise a food cart that is not well known or never heard of? Many people have the wrong perception of food cart business so many food cart fabricators victimize innocent people telling them to franchise their food cart for a very low price with no royalty fee but their food cart are not popular or well known. So you will end up selling their product which they have sold you at a higher price. You are literally selling their product, you are now their

salesman and not a business owner and you will have to pay their franchise fee. But on the contrary, if you plan to have food cart business and cannot afford a well known brand with a pricey franchise fee, you can set-up your own food cart and your own brand by contacting a food cart fabricator. Just be careful not to contact those who sell franchised food carts, only those fabricators who makes made-to-order food carts. Who knows, if ever your business became popular someday, you will become a franchisor to many people who wants to franchise your business.

4) Meat shop business - meat shops are common in wet markets. You can set up a meat shop business there side by side with other many meat shop owners but what I have in mind is setting it up away from the wet market where there is less competition. You can put it where there is no meat shop existing in the place but be sure the location has enough foot traffic.

5) Tarpaulin printing business – there is a good market for this business and there are various ways a printed tarpaulin can do. One very popular application is on food carts. Printed graphics on tarpaulin is very attractive and it is tough too. On other occasions like birthdays, anniversary and even on a funeral tarpaulin is used. political candidates on local and national election also used printed tarpaulin on their campaign.

6) CAD plotting business – this is a very specialized business and only caters to architects and engineers. A plotter is very similar to a printer and the only difference is a printer can only print letter size or A4 size papers whereas a plotter can print very large paper size. It plots designs and drawings made by an architect or engineer on a drafting paper where sizes range from a very small 9 x 12 inches to 36 x 48 inches.

7) Ukay-Ukay business – for those not familiar with this business, it is selling used clothing. The used clothes are imported from other countries. Some of the clothes are overrun (still brand new but didn’t pass the export standard) but still good. The reason why many Filipinos patronize it is because of the cheap price. It only cost a fraction compared when buying in department stores or boutique.

8) Street food business – Isaw or grilled intestines is the most popular street food among Filipinos. There are also many kinds of street food business that are popular. Fish ball, kikiam, cheese sticks, squid balls and chicken balls that you can buy in small packs ready to fry. There is also other street food business that you have to process your self before grilling on charcoal like the pig intestine or isaw, chicken intestine or IUD, pig ears or walkman, pork blood or betamax, chicken head or helmet and chicken feet or adidas. Kwek kwek and tokneneng are also very popular. These are shelled boiled eggs and coated with flour batter mixture and then fried. The only difference between the two are kwek kwek is quail eggs where tokneneng is duck egg or chicken egg.

9) Tiangge - a small rented space and seller usually sells dry goods. This is not new and the word “tiangge” is just our local term of the English word “Flea Market”. The reason why it is very popular among Filipinos is because of the very cheap price of the items sold and it was already stereotyped as “cheap items”. The usual place you can see them are parking lots or malls.

10) Online selling business – online selling doesn’t require anyone to be a computer geek in order to sell online. There are many online classified ads and auction sites that you can use for free. The most popular are eBay Philippines and  sulit.com.ph. You can also create an online shop for free and multiply.com is the choice of many Filipino online sellers. There is no need to create an eCommerce site to set up you own online shop because there are many websites that offer free posting of your items for sale like websites I’ve mentioned before.

11) Cellphone loading business - the good thing about this business is you can start with a small capital. The reason why is because of the recent technology of eloading, a universal type of loading where you can sell load on all telecom networks including prepaid game cards. There is one universal loading I know, the Vmobile Technologies load E extreme that you can try. Unlike if you want to be a direct reseller of big telecom companies like Smart, Globe or Sun Cellular, you need a big capital and to start an eloading business.

12)  Shoe and bag repair business - there are tons of replica shoes and bags coming from China, and because of the cheap price, almost everyone can afford replica designer bags in the fraction of the price of the original. But because of the poor quality, these products are easily damaged and it is a waste of money if they will throw it away. So the easy option is to go to a repair shop.

13) Laundry and dry cleaning business - sometimes is it more practical to get the service of a laundry shop than hiring a laundry maid to get the job done specially if you only have few clothes. There are also some clothes or comforter that cannot be washed with an ordinary

washing machine and if the clothes or bed sheets need to be dry cleaned, you certainly need a laundry shop.

14) Fruits and vegetable store – these items, although perishable are also one of our basic needs to survive and be healthy. So next to rice, our staple diet, people need to eat fruit and vegetables too.

15) Barber shop or Beauty Parlor business - although you can live without having a haircut, and if you plan to become a hermit, a bum or just a hippie or live under a rock for the rest of your life you don’t need a barber or a beautician. A good reason why it is a good business is because people needs a haircut every 1 to 2 months to look good and be comfortable. As for me, although I’m not vain or very conscious on my hairstyle, I’m not comfortable if I will not  go to a barber shop at least every 2  months. I admit that there are lots of barber shops and beauty parlor sprouting every where and there are lots of competition already but since this type of service is a necessity and consumable, there are still many customers who needs this service.

16) Selling native delicacies - there are many kinds native delicacies you can sell and the amazing part is many Filipinos love to eat kakanin. Some of the kakanin or native delicacies are suman sa ibos, puto, cuchinta, bibingka, halaya , sapin-sapin, biko and maja blanca. The only disadvantage of this business is the goods are perishable and the kakanin should be sold within the day. Some native delicacies have longer shelf life like barquillos, piaya, otap, puto seko and other dried goods.

17) Personalized T-shirt printing –  I saw this business in a mall and it’s doing great because I see many customers availing of the service. Technology made it possible to make personalized t-shirt printing in a few minutes. You only need a computer, Adobe Photoshop and a t-shirt transfer paper and presto! you already have a t-shirt printing business.

18) Selling washing machine and electric fan parts – these two appliances are the most basic thing a human being, or more specifically a Pinoy needs to live more comfortably. Since we live in a tropical country, the temperature is very warm and electric fan is the only choice for most of us. And for washing our clothes, we need a washing machine.

19) Affiliate marketing – do you wonder why there are many websites and blogs on the internet? why are they making personal websites or blogs? do they make them all for passion or hobby? I admit that many started making website and blog because they do it for passion but some people dream of making it big someday. If you are a blogger and only using free hosting sites like Blogger.com or WordPress.com, you might not think of any monetary gain because blogging is free. But if you are paying for the hosting and have your own domain name registered with a annual fee, then you might as well think on how to earn money through your blog to pay for the expenses. The most common method of earning money through websites or blog is affiliate marketing. You promote other people’s product or services and you will be paid a percentage of the sales made through your blog or website. The more visitors a blog has, the more chances of earning money.

20) Photography -  if you love taking photos, why not level up to a professional level and invest a DSLR camera? a good training is also required and of course a talent for taking good shots. There are various ways this business can offer services. On wedding, birthdays, anniversaries and other unforgettable occasions. You will also need a computer and a photo editing software to enhance the photos you created. And if you really want to level up to the highest level, why not try aerial photography? Technology has brought the technicalities and expenses of aerial photography. You don’t need to hire a real airplane or helicopter to accomplish the task that requires hundreds of thousands of pesos just to take an aerial shot. You know how expensive it is to hire a real aircraft. But as I’ve said, technology has made it possible to bring down the cost. The answer to that are radio controlled airplanes or helicopters. Cameras are mounted to those R/C aircraft to take aerial shots. R/C helicopters makes a precise aerial shots than airplanes but the best R/C aircraft to take aerial photos or videos are quadcopters and multirotor copters. A more advance type of helicopter with four or more propellers.

Hoping that the business ideas I’ve shared has helped you decide on what business to start this coming year. Please also share this on other social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter or Google Plus.