PH startup recognized as ‘Best Brand’ in Asia

TECH B2B platform GrowSari was recently crowned as the best B2B E-commerce Brand across Southeast Asia, South Asia and ANZ (Australia, New Zealand) regions. The Philippine startup has been recognized for uplifting and digitizing Filipino mom & pop stores to be comprehensive service hubs for the community in the Asia ECommerce Awards 2022.

“We are thrilled to receive this award, as it is a testament to a truly local Philippine brand we built ourselves with advertising and demand-generation activities done in-house and getting recognized in Asia E-commerce space,” said Maimai Madrid Punazalan, Growsari’s chief marketing officer.

Last year, Growsari was also recognized by several award giving bodies for its social impact on the grassroot community in the Philippines. The platform for sari-sari (variety) stores and MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises) was also named as one of the Top StartUps in the Philippines on Linkedin Awards 2022, the Trailblazer Award in Asiastar 10x10 by Alibaba Cloud and KrASIA, and a global digital commercial innovation award in BAI Global Innovation Awards.

In 2022, GrowSari accelerated its expansion plan, opening to the other regions of the Philippines. By June 2022, GrowSari opened more hubs in the Visayas and Mindanao, establishing its foothold in key cities such as Iloilo, Bacolod, Cebu and Davao, and has served more than 250,000 sari-sari stores to date. These stores are not just ordering FMCG products but accessing e-services for their suki (regular customers) as well, improving total monthly revenue of the platform by 2.6x versus 2021.

“GrowSari is committed to continue our mission this 2023 in building a digitally inclusive platform while empowering MSMEs with income opportunities and supporting the digitization of sarisari stores,” Punzalan said.

For the upcoming year, GrowSari plans to roll out a Universal Digital Payments QR Code that will accept payments from across multiple wallets and banks to stores to more than 50,000 of its users. The service allows their suki to pay via QR code that will be credited to their Growcoins, GrowSari’s in-app currency, directly and in real-time, which is seen to help make their lives even easier.

GrowSari has 20 warehouses nationwide and capacity to cater to 60 percent of the sari-sari stores in its serviceable areas. Ultimately, GrowSari’s ambition is to reach and serve the more than 1.1 million sari-sari stores nationwide and be their true partner in uplifting their lives as GrowSari transforms their small business into the store of their dreams.