I am studying abroad in the Philippines and will be here for 4 years. I was wondering what kind of business would be good to do over here. I have two parks and a couple of SFRs already in the US and am managing everything from here and it is going okay… but want to diversify as well out of the good old USA. The labor here is cheap about $10 a day minimum wage. There is a big gap between rich and poor… but the rich are not that rich here at all compared to US standards. Retail prices are kind of weird… US products are sold at around 1.7x the price in america. There is no walmart style cheap stores here… mainly just malls and they are semi-expensive for a poor country…hard to find walmart cheap over here. Location is great… I’m just a $200 roundtrip flight from almost anywhere in asia(china, hong kong, japan, korea, singapore, thailand, and even middle east). There are a lot of young people here average age according to CIA fact book is 23 years old. Housing rent is around $100… I am in the best spot in a hi-rise condo paying only $500… but buying real estate is a problem for non-filipinos and I looked deep into it and have now just canceled it out of my mind and would rather stick to a business over here… or maybe something else outside the country.What do you guys think? What would be a good business idea to do here in the Philippines?
Maybe offering consulting on living in the Philippines – I really like the cost structure (it’s even lower than Missouri – except that we have Wal-Marts). With 10,000 baby boomers per day retiring in the U.S., and the average social security income is $1,200 per month for this group, they are looking for cheap places to live that have a quality lifestyle, and this sounds more attractive than a hut in South America like many articles suggest.
Yeah it is definitely worth it for the lower class americans… they will live like kings over here compared to in America.
I would think something like a professional looking dollar store would be a big hit in a place like that. I thought the same thing when I was running around, doing business in Russia… It was kind of how you describe the Philippines; just about everyone is poor, but manufactured items cost more then here. I went to the big retailer’s show in Las Vegas and there was a whole convention building full of dollar store wholesalers. I told them of my bright idea and one of them told me that there was a woman doing that in Russia and she was doing great – but then the competition shot her dead. Scrap that idea. Russia is such a screwed up place, its hard to think of something nice to say about it. I hope that is not the case in the Philippines.
“shot her dead” literally?
Yeah… I like the idea of a dollar store. I really don’t understand why there are none here.
Yes, dead. That is how they do it there in lovely Russia. In St. Petersburg there is a home center a lot like Home Depot. Another one opened up and set off some bombs in the first one to scare all its customers away. It would be like Lowes setting off bombs in Home Depot. There are a slough of dollar store wholesalers in LA, some that have pretty good online information on the business. One thing I have noticed is that they are getting squeeze by rising wholesale prices. When I first looked at them some years ago, most items wholesold (is that a word?) for $.50. Now it is somewhere between $.65 and .70, but the retailers are stuck at selling for $1.00. At some point they need to become the “Buck and a Quarter Store” or the “Buck an’ a Half” store. My mom talks of the “Five and Dime” stores of her youth in the 30’s. But that concept of every item at one low price is such a winner.
I like the 99cent store idea… Feed the masses eat with the classes! haha… but I don’t know if I can do it hands off style… like the lovely mobile home parks…which are a breeze to run. I don’t want to be managing anything on a daily basis at all.Also what about this… a sales call center for some kind of telesales to Australia and New Zealand.Another idea is a store that sells only American goods. It seems like many countries in this side of the world are in love with America and anything that deals with USA.I’m also thinking of getting a farm of some type in Australia or New Zealand.What are your thoughts? Any other ideas? I’m trying to not have the US dollar as the basis for my income for this new investment that I want to do.1. 99 cent store2. Call center3. USA store4. Farm in Aus or NZ