Packworks

# High-Level Overview

Packworks is a mobile enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform that digitizes operations for sari-sari stores—the neighborhood mom-and-pop retail shops that form the backbone of Philippine commerce.[2] The company provides a comprehensive B2B solution designed to help micro-retailers manage inventory, track sales, maintain bookkeeping records, and access business intelligence—all through a lightweight, device-agnostic app.[3] By bringing digital tools previously available only to large enterprises to over 300,000 sari-sari stores, Packworks addresses a critical gap in the Philippine supply chain while driving financial inclusion for 1.1 million micro-entrepreneurs, predominantly women.[1][4]

The platform has demonstrated measurable impact: users report a 35% increase in monthly average sales, and the system processes over 1 million monthly transactions across its network.[4] Packworks' mission extends beyond software—it aims to empower small business owners to shift from analog to digital operations while providing financial literacy education, positioning itself as a catalyst for economic resilience in underserved communities.[1]

Origin Story

Packworks was founded in 2017 (with operations beginning in 2018) by Bing Tan, Ibba Bernardo, and Hubert Yap.[2][7] The company's genesis is rooted in a moment of genuine insight: the founders discovered the challenges facing sari-sari store owners during motorcycle trips delivering solar panels to remote areas.[1][7] Rather than viewing this as a peripheral observation, they recognized an opportunity to leverage their technical expertise to solve a systemic problem affecting millions of Filipino micro-entrepreneurs.

The founders' commitment to understanding their users proved foundational. By working closely with sari-sari store owners and returning to their roots in these communities, they gained firsthand knowledge of the operational pain points—inventory management, supply chain coordination, and access to wholesale pricing—that plagued these businesses.[1] This user-centric approach shaped the platform from inception. Early traction was rapid: the team started with just five store partners in 2018 and scaled to nearly 200,000 stores by 2023, validating both the product-market fit and the massive addressable market.[1]

Core Differentiators

Accessibility and Resilience

• Operates across multiple devices (phones, tablets, PCs) and delivery channels (web app, mobile app, chat-based messaging)[4]
• Functions in low-bandwidth environments with offline-capable chat-based access, critical for rural Philippine areas with unreliable connectivity[4]
• Designed with scalability built in, growing alongside users from sari-sari stores to mini-groceries[4]

Comprehensive Feature Set

• Inventory management with real-time stock tracking and wholesale ordering capabilities[3]
• Shop management system that records purchases, tracks credit (*utang*), and maintains daily/weekly/monthly sales records[3]
• Bookkeeping and financial tracking with cash-on-hand visibility and accounts receivable management[3]
• Data analytics through Sari IQ dashboard, providing brands and manufacturers with high-definition insights into consumer behavior and product performance at the retail level[1][3]

Market Intelligence Advantage

• Sari IQ analyzes over 1 million monthly transactions, offering unprecedented visibility into consumer spending patterns across the Philippines[2]
• Provides brands and multinational companies direct access to neighborhood-level sales data, solving their historical challenge of connecting with distributed retail networks[1]

Financial Inclusion Focus

• Integrated financial literacy education embedded in the platform[4]
• Enables micro-entrepreneurs—particularly women-led businesses—to access wholesale pricing and credit management tools previously unavailable to them[1][3]

Role in the Broader Tech Landscape

Packworks operates at the intersection of three powerful trends: digital transformation in emerging markets, last-mile retail connectivity, and financial inclusion technology. The company addresses a structural inefficiency in the Philippine economy: while multinational consumer goods companies have sophisticated supply chains, they lack direct visibility into the 1.1 million sari-sari stores that represent their primary distribution channel to rural and underserved urban consumers.[1][2]

The timing is critical. As e-commerce consolidates urban retail in Southeast Asia, sari-sari stores remain the dominant retail format for lower-income Filipinos, making them economically essential but digitally invisible.[2] Packworks fills this gap by creating a data bridge between informal retail and formal supply chains—benefiting store owners through better inventory management and pricing power, while giving brands the market intelligence needed to optimize distribution and product mix.

Beyond commerce, Packworks exemplifies a broader shift in Southeast Asian fintech: moving from consumer-facing payments to B2B infrastructure for informal economies. By digitizing the sari-sari store ecosystem, the platform creates a foundation for future financial services (credit, insurance, savings products) while simultaneously improving macroeconomic data visibility for policymakers.

Quick Take & Future Outlook

Packworks is positioned to become the operating system for Philippine informal retail—a role with significant scale potential given that sari-sari stores represent a multi-billion-dollar retail ecosystem. The company's next frontier likely involves deepening financial services integration (inventory financing, working capital solutions) and expanding the Sari IQ analytics offering to become a critical business intelligence tool for consumer goods manufacturers across Southeast Asia.

The broader opportunity extends beyond the Philippines. Sari-sari stores are a distinctly Philippine phenomenon, but the underlying problem—connecting multinational supply chains to fragmented informal retail networks—exists across Southeast Asia and beyond. If Packworks can adapt its model to other markets' equivalent retail formats (neighborhood shops in Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand), the company could evolve from a Philippines-focused platform into a regional infrastructure play.

What makes Packworks compelling is that it solves a problem that benefits all stakeholders simultaneously: store owners gain profitability tools, brands gain market visibility, and consumers gain access to better-stocked, better-managed neighborhood retailers. In an ecosystem historically characterized by information asymmetry and inefficiency, that alignment is rare—and valuable.