12 Back-to-School Business Ideas to Get into Philippine Youth Market

By Go EntrePinay 3:45:00 PM Entrepreneurship Startup

Scouring for back-to-school business ideas this month of June? Well, your hunches could be on pretty right tracks. Perhaps with prudent management practices plus a huge Philippine youth market to cater to, it’s not hard to see why several Pinoy companies which began from entrepreneurial business start-ups have churned out phenomenal success through the years. There are the likes of a shoe store turned shopping mall giant, a burger fast food chain catapulted industry leader, and a book store school supplies retailer with national bragging rights, just to name a few. Just imagine 54% of the country’s 100M population in 2011 being comprised by people aged below 25 years old and you definitely have a strong market demand to back you up with. Smart would-be entrepreneurs wouldn’t miss spotting this obvious market opportunity.

Get into youth market with back-to-school business ideas.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay

Truly, Philippines’ predominantly young population has ushered in abundant business possibilities for various industries from food, fashion, leisure, and of course, to learning, among others. Below are some business ideas in time with school opening season to bring you a steady demand for almost the whole year round.

1. Day care or Pre-school

If you love kids, setting up a day care or pre-school may just be the thing for you. Although a pre-school has stricter regulations than day care, both ventures require you to spend time with children from toddlers to pre-school age. When setting up location, you need to look out for communities of start-up families or friendly neighbourhood sites near business centers for the convenient drop-off and pick-up of kids usually done by working moms.

2. School Supplies Retailing

Sales of paper pads, pens, pencils, crayons, notebooks, and all other school supplies peak especially during school opening but enjoys a steady demand for the rest of the school year from students, school faculty and admin staff. Putting up your school supplies store near the school would be best. Meanwhile selling additional products or locating beside complementary shops like food snacks, personal care, and gift accessories could help boost your sales further.

3. Uniform Sewing and Repair

Do you know how to sew? Make a business out of your sewing skills by supplying student and teacher uniforms, physical education sports apparel, varsity team jackets, and other items of school clothing ensemble. Aside from custom-fit tailoring, you can also do sewing repair services. You can start by accepting single job orders as your village “modista” but if you’re able to prove your quality services, word-of-mouth advertising from happy customers can lead you to more client referrals or even allow you to bag orders from school and company clients later.

4. Mobile Food Business

Selling food snacks is a sure-fire back-to-school business formula as kids undoubtedly love eating the most! Why not get into the latest food craze via the mobile food cart or food truck? Whether you’re a cooking enthusiast or seasoned chef, the mobile food business could serve well as launch pad and showcase vehicle of your well-loved home recipe or new specialty gourmet recipe. While business and location permits could be tedious to secure, this let-down is offset by the flexibility that goes with mobile food business. You can easily move around parking locations depending on how well business is doing at allowed sites.

5. Academic Tutorial Services

Are you an expert in a particular subject? Share your knowledge and earn from it at the same time by doing tutorial services. You may start doing tutorials at homes of your student clients at first. But you can have this turned to a full-blown business with an office of your own once you have a bunch of customers already. What’s good about doing tutorials is you can do this at your spare time outside your regular job. Best of all, it only requires your brain power to start it up.

6. Musical Instrument Teacher

While some parents hire tutors to help their kids with the academe, some also pay for teaching lessons in music. If you’re gifted with a bard’s ear when playing the piano, guitar, violin, or other musical instruments, you could also turn this talent into a business. Like academic tutoring, you could teach home lessons to your clients if you don’t have your own instruments at first. Once you’ve saved enough capital, you can start building up your own music school with complete instruments and facilities.

7. Sports Mentoring

Even when summer ended, you can still continue with teaching and coaching kids in sports. Try out as team coach of the varsity team or post at the internet your outstanding sports credentials so student athletes may notice and hire your services as personal trainer. Like academic and music tutoring, this one requires almost nil capital investment except your fitness and sports expertise.

8. Internet Shop

Internet shops are most helpful to students for their research needs. To keep up with competition from alternative yet affordable gadgets like smartphones and tablets, you can provide add-on benefits like lay-outing, scanning, typing, printing, and even photo I.D. services. You may even add selling candies to your list for a more enjoyable research work by your student clients.

9. Books and Magazines Store

Books and magazines covering a wide variety of topics ranging from academic subjects, general reference, specialty fields, niche topics, arts and crafts, and hobbies can attract a large student market. You have the option of running your store the traditional brick and mortar way or online via e-commerce with provision on shipping costs though.

10. Research Writing Firm

The education industry involves much research work and some definitely seek assistance in this area. Hence, there’s the great need not only for individuals but also for big companies to contract research services to external parties. If you’re one who enjoys reading up, learning new things, and has great writing skills for conveying meaningful information, then putting up a research writing firm may be a worthwhile venture for you to earn money while doing that which interests you at the same time.

11. Bookbinding Shop

Book reports, term papers, research projects, and other work submissions will never run out in the academe. As there’s always the need to collate paper works and so that’s why bookbinding stands as an old but prolific business found at university belts and shopping centers. Couple with bookbinding the need for making several copies and adding a photocopying service will strengthen your business even more.

12. School Bus Service

If you’re someone who’s always on the go and enjoys your time on the road, driving your way to a school bus company may be your route to entrepreneurship. With this business, you have to get used though to early morning work hours to get kids on time, vigilant following of weather advisories for typhoon class suspensions, and regulatory compliances under government transport agencies. While business may be out during summer, you’ve gotten however an assured clientele which brings you cash liquidity for the entire school year.

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