Tutuban Mall: A place for low-capital, low-risk business for start-up entrepreneurs

MANILA, Philippines - What’s a Vietnamese mestiza doing at the Tutuban Mall grounds till midnight all the days of her life for about six years now? Hahn Nguyen Tamisen and her husband and two helpers go to the mall daily and stay there till about midnight or past midnight. With such a routine for many years past, she was able to send to school her son until he finished college in October last year. He took up a course that Hahn has always wanted for herself – Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering. She enrolled at Polytechnic University of the Philippines for the same course but was forced by circumstances to drop out after her third year in school. Her son’s graduation is the best feather in her cap made possible by her surefire all-year-round business at the Tutuban Mall from 7:30 p.m. till about midnight. Peak season or off peak, her business at the Tutuban Mall night market assures her enough income to support her family’s needs and some luxuries to boot. She was even able to buy a van out of the proceeds of her business. That’s how successful her business is at the mall’s night market even with only five hours a day of work during off-peak season and more during the Yuletide holidays. There are many like her just as successful or nearly as successful.

Hahn is only one of 250 regular stallholders at the Tutuban Mall’s night market. She maintains a small stall that costs her only about P6,000 monthly, an all-in package price (that already includes a one-month rental and security deposit with built in electrical consumption charges) for a regular stall in and around the site where her stall is located. Others – the priority stalls as she termed them – cost from P9,000 to over P10,000 but there isn’t any restriction on the type of dry goods sold.   Apart from this, aspiring stallholders of Tutuban Mall night market need to submit the following documents: BIR ID, city business permit, two valid IDs, and working visa (for foreign investors).

Hahn sells imported accessories made of stainless steel which she swears, are of good quality. “When they are not as shiny anymore as they originally are, all you have to do is to polish them again and they will look as shiny as they were when they were new,” Hahn said. “They also have such nice designs and certain items are one-of-a-kind or limited edition,” she added, “which is why many of my customers keep on coming back, some celebrities among them, both male and female.”

And what about her pricing?

“Some of the items I sell are also sold in some malls and the mall prices are sometimes double the amount I sell them for.” Hahn shared that most of the time, her profit margin are only within the P15 – P20 range. She is not after making a big killing but is after repeat customers. Yes, Hahn never burns bridges,that is why her customers always come back for more, whether for business or personal use. Her biggest advice to beginners in the tiangge business is to make do with how much money one has, no matter how small, for capital instead of taking out a loan, and “to be friendly to customers – in Tagalog, there is a simple term for this: “magiliw sa customers.” In Hahn’s case, she started with only P10,000 worth of goods for capital.

So what are saleable?

“Footwear” is her first answer. “After all, people have to buy something for their feet.” Basically, her answer to this question consists of just about anything any shopper would see in a typical tiangge.

The Tutuban Mall night market boasts of 250 stalls offering practically everything – from footwear to clothes to bags to trinkets to pillows to umbrellas, sunglasses, just about anything. During the Christmas-to-New-Year peak season, according to Tutuban Mall Marketing Officer Jhaycee Olaira, this reaches about 500 or 600 stalls and the night market usually ends during the wee hours of the morning. He confirmed the stall pricing mentioned by Hahn: “from P6,000 to about P15,000 per month.”

He shared with pride how the numerous staff of the mall breeze through the routine daily setting-up and dismantling of the light steel display facilities for as many as 250 tiangge stores. They are already so used to the routine their adept hands enable them to set up everything in less than an hour and dismantle in even less time.

Asked about the uniqueness of the Tutuban Mall night market, Jhaycee talked about its being year-round, while most other tiangges are seasonal. He also cited the “rockbottom” pricing, even lower than prices at Divisoria stalls. This is also corroborated by Hahn who qualified that what they have are products that are generally of good quality.

How long has this been going on? How come many people don’t still know this night market is year-round?

“The tiangges at Tutuban Mall started in 1996 but they became operational only all-year-round only in 1998,” Jhaycee said.