Neighborhood ‘sari-sari’ stores posted over P8B in sales in 2023

MANILA  —Small neighborhood variety stores in the Philippines, colloquially known as sari-sari stores, tallied more than P8 billion in sales in 2023, growing by over a fifth compared to the preceding year, with those located outside of the country’s urban areas performing better.

A recent report of analytics startup Packworks, which tracked information from more than 270,000 sari-sari stores nationwide, revealed that sales of sari-sari stores increased by 21.2 percent from the P6.6 billion recorded in 2022.

The number of transactions in the country’s sari-sari stores also climbed from 7.2 million in 2002 to 8.2 million in 2023, according to the same report.

Meanwhile, the product categories that had the highest sales are instant noodles, ready-to-heat products, recipe mix and ready-to-cook goods.

High sales in rural sari-sari stores

The report also highlighted that the sari-sari stores in the Philippines’ suburban and largely rural and agricultural mainland of Luzon had the highest sales.

READ: Food inflation in ‘sari-sari’ stores higher at 15.62%

This is led by Region IV-A where P2.83 billion in sales was recorded, Region II with P1.82 billion, and Region III with P1.58 billion.

Traditional, urban centers such as the National Capital Region and Cebu, were at fifth and sixth place, with the sari-sari stores there tallying P1 billion and P900 million in sales, respectively.

The three Philippine regions that recorded the lowest sales are Region XI with P310 million, the Cordillera Administrative Region with P90 million, and the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao with around P3 million.

Not inflation-driven

“Rural, agriculture-based regions are naturally more dependent on sari-sari stores rather than on modern trade stores such as groceries,” Packworks said, noting that there is a trend where the volume growth of purchases is dispersing beyond Metro Manila to the regions near it that are easy for distribution of goods.

READ: Inflation-proofing Filipinos, one ‘sari-sari’ store at a time

The analytics firm also highlighted that sari-sari store sales trends were not directly driven by inflation, reasoning that the month-on-month growth in the gross merchandise value—or the total amount of sales in a given period—was not correlated with the country’s monthly inflation rate.

“Instead, it seems to be more driven by occasions rather than inflation, as most of the peaks in the trend coincide with major occasions with long breaks —Christmas season and Holy Week,” said Packworks.