Savoring the good life in Imus, Cavite

Shopwise has found a new home in Imus, Cavite, adding another page to Imus’ colorful history. So, on a breezy, easy Tuesday, we drive out to Imus, the capital city of Cavite, to check out the new Shopwise on Aguinaldo Avenue and find out for ourselves why it’s been drawing droves of shoppers since it opened last January 17.

Entering the store, we’re greeted by wide, clean aisles and bright lights, matched by Shopwise personnel wearing big, bright smiles.

Pan-tastic items

As in all Shopwise stores, the products are grouped into categories (and laid out according to how a mom would shop for her family’s needs).  Quite a refreshing sight is the seafood section where you can catch tons of fresh fish that can go straight to your frying pan and onto your dining table.  And speaking of frying pans, there’s a sale of mini pans good enough for frying one egg. They come in different cute colors. There are also bigger nonstick pans as well as stainless steel pots and other kitchen utensils under the private label Giant, that’s making big news in Southeast Asian countries. For the first time, Shopwise is bringing Giant products into the country.

Meanwhile, for a truly fruitful experience, check out the fruits section, where you can find all the local fruits in season as well as your favorite imported fruits.

It’s bound to be a favorite meating place, too, what with its offering of fresh, chilled Australian beef at local prices.

For my daily bread, I pick out some freshly baked goodies at the bread/pastry section, like a couple of asado pan de sal and some ham and cheese bread, as well as a pack of cheese ensaymada.

Shopwise Imus gives homemakers a helping hand by putting up a dedicated cleaning aids section, where you can find all sorts of mops. Now, the mopping-up operation at home should be a breeze. Right next to that is the laundry section for detergents and all your laundry needs or everything else on your wash list.

Pet lovers will love the fact that Shopwise Imus has brought in VitaPet dog food, in addition to its regular range of cat and dog foods.

I make a quick stop at the clothes section where I grab a comfy housedress. I get a pack of hangers in my favorite pink color, too.

Finally, I head to the checkout counter to pay for my purchases. Fast and fuss-free one-stop shopping? You bet!

Conquering space

“Our latest Shopwise in Imus is only 5,500 sq. m. — people don’t want big, big stores anymore because they’re time-starved,” says Donnie Tantoco, Rustan Supercenters Inc. president and the dynamo behind the steady growth of Shopwise in the Philippines. “They want you to offer everything in a more compact space, but you have to be complete, you still have to deliver a one-stop shop. So, the challenge for us was to fit all the categories you’d normally find in 10,000 sq.m. in only 5,500 sq.m. And we were able to do that with the way we organized the layout and the way all the categories were put adjacent to each other so that they flow from one to the next.”

Again, this is all with the working mother in mind (a brainchild of the original Shopwise dream team led by Crickette Tantoco, herself a devoted working mom, and Frances Yu), how she fulfills her chore and shops not just for groceries but other basic necessities as well for her family. There’s rhyme and reason to it, so Donnie, Crickette’s husband, agrees.

To give consumers the best offerings there are on the market, Shopwise Imus edited a million SKUs (stock-keeping units or numbers that identify products so that they can be tracked for inventory).

“We try to get to know our customers better, we try to find different budgets, in some cases specifications or which ones will fit your needs,” Donnie points out.

Shopping for a shopwise site

Shopwise couldn’t have picked a better place to put up its 13th branch. “It’s a very good city to be in, it’s already got a mature community of 40,000 households,” says a beaming Donnie. “We were lucky to find a very good corner on Aguinaldo Avenue, very well-positioned within the community. And even from our store, we can access another important city — Dasmariñas. These are well-established communities that you can say are still in their high growth, progressive growth mode.”

Scouting around for a site for Shopwise, Donnie, a former TOYM awardee, confesses, “You do the usual thing, you visit the talipapa, go into the neighborhood, you do all that study, but at the end of the day, you get a feel for it. You get a feel of the soul of the place and Imus had the right feel. You know you’re going to be together.”

He hastens to add, “We’re here for the long haul. We don’t only want to be part of the economy, we really want to be part of the community.”

Donnie and his indefatigable Shopwise team surely got to know the Imus community quite well  (literally inside out) during their home visits. So well that they know what’s in the refrigerators of the families living there. For instance, they were welcomed into the home of this mother whose husband was fooling around. She was living with her mother-in-law and was scrimping, but she had a jar of Nutella in her ref. “Her only sense of self-worth is being a mother and serving the best she can to her children,” Donnie notes.

The new Shopwise brings to Caviteños the good life they can afford. Donnie stresses, “This is part of our thrust to continuously extend the hypermarket’s signature experience beyond the capital. Every Filipino shopper desires nothing but a good buy — quality finds at affordable prices, and this is what Shopwise gives them.”

Shopwise Imus features a diverse tenant mix that includes Pao Tsin, Fruitas, Tapa, Potdog, CD-R To Go, Eye-Q Optical, Razon’s, Belgian Waffles, Sandugo, Rose Pharmacy, and Salon de Rose. It brings to Cavite such unique dining concepts as the Asian-inspired Mongolian Stir Fry and the Chicken Corner located inside the supermarket, for affordable, filling, and delicious full-meal solutions.

“We keep driving our prices down to be competitive,” Donnie asserts. “Rather than pocket the savings, we give that to the customers in terms of discounts, promos (like flat screen TV sets).”

Now, can shopping get any wiser than this?

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Shopwise Imus is located at Aguinaldo Highway corner Anabu-Kostal Road, Anabu, Imus, Cavite. Shopwise is managed by Rustan Supercenters Inc., a member of the Dairy Farm International Group.