The challenges of #Retailing in #Uganda, #Rwanda and #Malawi

 Five hundred entrepreneurs from Uganda, Rwanda and Malawi will be joining our program in 2014. This will be our biggest year since we started in 2009. Of these clients many will be in the Retail sector, either selling from a shop front or via an extensive network of family and friends from their home or office.

Unlocking the talent of these entrepreneurs by sharing skills from  our global volunteer team has huge potential to create jobs in their communities .  Sharing knowledge on daily record keeping, different types of price promotions from 'Twofers', to 'Bogofs' to 'BHPs' and focusing on customer research into products that they would like to buy can make a real and tangible difference to business performance.  Providing this insight and experience has been invaluable to Evelyn who runs a cosmetics shop in Blantyre Malawi. With her consultant James they focused on which products were selling well. They carried out a full invenotry of all all of her stock realising that the majority of her sales were coming from 25% of her product. By running promotions on hair weave stock that was not selling well she was able to provide more space for the South African lotions  that were selling far better at a higher margin. This enabled her to increase her profits by 10%.

By investing your time in our entrepreneurs, building their business self confidence and sharing ideas you are able to make a real fundamental difference