The Struggle on Opening Day

We managed to start our otak-otak stall but with so many hurdles. *Phew..*

Supposedly this should be a daily business and opened from 6pm to 11pm for a total of 5 hour excluding the preparation time. However, the restaurant where we rented the stall from is closed every Friday. Due to our working schedule, we have to close on Saturday, Sunday and Monday which dampened our spirit a bit but we allow a month to see the progress of the business before we jump the gun.

Our first hurdle was..a car breakdown. Crazy right? Hehehe..We were on our way to transport the Malaysian chips to one of our distributor and then..suddenly the car's electricity was cut off and no power at all. Fatty bom bom

We had our fair share of the rough day but was awed by the process of

towing of the car.

Food stall in Seri Kembangan

After a month selling snacks, ice cream in front of the school and Malaysian chips in the office, cafe and by our distributors; we think that it's about time to start a more proper and legal business.

This is all partly motivated by this particular article by The Star: No junk food outside schools
"KUALA Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) will embark on an operation to weed out junk food sellers doing business outside the premises of schools."

Our latest idea: To rent a stall inside a restaurant
Our menu: Otak-otak , Rojak Buah and Tahu Bakar.

Otak-Otak

Rojak Buah

Tahu Bakar

We are glad that our expedition has been greatly helped by Mr Mohammad - Otak-otak and Tahu Bakar distributor and Ms Mashitah - restaurant owner.

The expected date to open the stall will be no later than 2nd May 2011, Tuesday.

Wish us luck!!

How to go to Bagan Lalang: Part 2

This time the direction is more accurate and concise. We will start from

KLIA (Kuala Lumpur International Airport). You will have to pay

RM4.30 per journey.

The road is wide and you could see many advertisements by airlines.

Once you see the 'Kargo' signboard, make sure you take the most

left lane and get ready to exit to the left.

 

 

Take the left exit to Kargo/Terminal LCC (Low Cost Carrier)

You can't miss this huge mosque on your left once you take the

left turn.

 

See that roundabout. Make sure that you take the 12 o'clock exit.

 

Drive straight until you see the signboard to Bandar Enstek.

 

Then, you will see Sepang Goldcoast signboard and turn left.

 

Drive until you see the cross road and traffic lights at the end. You

won't miss the huge 'Enstek' signboard at the hill. Here, turn right.

Drive straight until you see this mosque on your right.

 

Drive straight until you find a T junction and a signboard to turn

right to Sepang Goldcoast.

 

Just follow the 'S' road and you won't miss this Digi signboard.

 

After that, just drive straight to Sg Pelik.

 

You will pass this brick factory on your left.

Esso gas station on your left.

And you are officially in Sg Pelik town! We are here. ^^

Malaysian Chips Distributor

We are giving an opportunity to everyone in Klang Valley, Kuala Lumpur, Puchong, Putrajaya, Cyberjaya, Kajang, Bangi and designated areas near to above mentioned places to become DISTRIBUTORS for Malaysian chips.


Wanted: Distributors
Age: Anyone interested 
Criteria: Willling to work smart, independent and able to find market for Malaysian chips.  

REWARD IS GUARANTEED!!

eMail us at warungbombom@gmail.com

New Menu to Prevent Obesity in School

Courtesy of Kosmo

According to Kosmo news, Ministry of Health (Malaysia) has announced of changes in the school canteen's menu served for students. Based on their research, the menu served currently tend to promote obesity due to high fat and sugar content. Not only that, the reprimand also goes to "sellers outside school vicinity."

Our view: We should vouch the notion. The students are Malaysia's future generation anyway. ^^

The price of Malaysian Ice Cream

Up till now, we had been constantly selling Malaysian ice cream for a mere 20 cents to students. It was a crazy idea to sell Malaysian ice cream at the same price when I had one around 1991. Sometimes we even doubt ourselves whether we break even at all with that value!

Fortunately, there's a good point of mingling with students. They are naive and somewhat honest. As fatty bom bom could speak Chinese, she carefully try not to disclose her ability. By doing that she could pick a few insights from the students' communication.

One of the students told his friend that the same Malaysian ice cream that we had was sold for 50 cents at SS3 and he realized that we offered the cheapest price.

Eureka! That's it! It's about time to sell Malaysian ice cream to the right market sector. Normally we sell around 100 sticks per day and on better days we sold nearly 200 sticks.

100~200 sticks per day at 20 cents brought us at RM20~RM40
100~200 sticks per day at 50 cents brought us at RM50~RM100

We decided that we are going to sell only Milo, Asam Boi and perhaps including the new edition; Red Bean.
^^

How to Market Malaysian Chips

After one month selling Malaysian chips, we found a few marketing tactics and techniques to distribute our expanding amount of chips.

In one month, we visited the chips factory 3 times.
1st time; we bought chips valued almost RM300
2nd time, we bought chips valued almost RM200
3rd time, we bought chips valued almost RM800

As we couldn't gauge the buyers' preferences over which chips they love most; we wasted a lot on transportation fees (petrol, toll and time). This one month has been our learning period. Tired, beaten, demoralized but OUR SPIRIT IS ROARING. ^^ Could you see the dynamic? In a month we have spent close to RM1,300 on chips alone. This does not include the money spent for snacks and ice-cream.

Our marketing strategies:

1. Create flyers - So far, we received very limited buyers with this method. Probably, the trust is not there.
2. Request friends to distribute - They agreed to do it albeit reluctantly. As our friends are not as passionate in implementing the business like us.
3. Sell to school students - Not the right targeted marketed. Students are not big spenders.
4. Sell to government and private offices - Right on the mark
5. Sell to university students - Right on the mark
6. Request convenience / grocery stores to sell our chips - We don't like it as our chips' quality will be compromised.

The best way is to find direct distributors who are willing to sell the chips with an attractive commission package.

Contempt and Jealousy in business

The impending day has finally come on 14th April 2011. The day also marked a full 1 month in the business. Does that mean that we are ready to embark on another attempt in business? Yes, definitely. Why?

Because of contempt and jealousy of another party, we have been checked, warned and our pictures taken for proof by MPSJ (Majlis Perbandaran Subang Jaya) that we have been doing the business illegally in front of school.

That said, we could guess who the party was. None other than the school canteen's owner. Honestly, we were so pissed off. The feeling is indescribable and were clueless when MPSJ loomed on us for our ID. None of us had brought the ID as we stayed just a shy few meters away from the school. Luckily, fatty bom bom stalled the time and MPSJ officials couldn't wait no more and left me with a warning.

Do not sell outside of the school premises. AGREED
The stuff we sell is hazardous to students. WE WOULD BE SO STUPID IF WE AGREE TO THIS.


The school canteen sell the same thing but only with higher price that the students chose to buy outside rather than from them.

In business, we are aware that there's so much contempt and jealousy darting around us but we gonna take it in a good stride. That it is about time to start our next business.

We will start opening a stall LEGALLY at one of the restaurants near our house by no later than end of April or early May.

Please pray for us and wish us luck!

Bika Bagi-Bagi: Snack review

Today is going to be the first installation of snack review. I'm gonna start with Bika Bagi-Bagi chocolate stick. Don't confuse yourself with another chips snack with similar name.

We sell this for 30 cents a piece. I found this is surprisingly tasty but

this is the least favorite among the snacks we sell to students. Till 

today, we are still perplexed about the students preferences over 

snack of junk food. One of the precious tips that we learned when

we do our business is:

VARIETY IS GOOD.

You must present various choices to kids when you sell snacks. Kids

love colors, variety and taste. Friend's influence also play

a major part on choosing what to buy. 

A hole in the middle with a layer of chocolate. It is yummy! ^^

How to make Ice Cream Malaysia : Part 2

If you remember, the last freezer we bought was a different model. The maker is still the same; Midea though but the loaned model is more powerful than the former. Our problem was, the old model could not freeze the ice cream as fast as we wished. According to the technician, we need to have air circulated in between the ice cream to ensure them to freeze in time. The major problem is: we don't have time ^^. We asked the technician to return the former freezer to the shop and do some experiment. In the mean time, this is loaned until God knows when.

Actually, we have never heard of Midea but we went along with the

salesman's suggesstion. Bummer!

Milo Ice cream

Rose syrup ice cream

Asam boi ice cream

Our First Day of Sale

Planning? Checked!

Market Research? Checked!

Capital? Checked!

Supply? Checked

Asset? Checked!

Preparation for sale? Checked!

Promotion? Checked!

Competition? Double Checked! 

*Drum rolling..* and now it's the time to go down to the field and fight, people! Hehehe..this is the the time that will tell us whether we gonna MAKE it or BREAK it. What is that?

It's the day that we start SELLING! ^___________^ <----big smile.

Verdict: Malaysia is SO HOT! so did our SALE.

The kids really love choki-choki! We are selling it only for 20 cents. While some of the sellers sold it for 30 cents. We won! Why we did that? There are some items that we used as bait..or to put it in better words -promotional items. This will encourage the buyers to purchase other than this once they drop by our stall. 

The choclairs in the middle is sold for 10 cents and the Kat-Kat cuttlefish was a total disappointment! We had to return it to our supplier cause we found fungi in a few of the packets. Beware! Don't sell bad products to our future generation. ^^

Roka in the middle is sold for 20 cents each and the Dynamite sweet goes for 10 cent for every 2 piece.

From left - marshmallow, mentos sweet, star cup (chocolate), verjuice powder and Nips (chocolate coated peanut). The winner? Verjuice powder! We sold stacks of them. I don't really understand why the kids love it so much. Some even bought like 4-5 bottles in one go. The taste is a bit sour to my liking. Hmm..

And of course the snacks..all goes for 30 cents each. From left - Chickadees, Super Ring, Corntos and Double Decker.

Fatty bom bom couldn't stand the heat. Hehe..guys, it was really hot! Trust us. Try standing under the sun at 1 noon everyday. We had to slab loads of sunblock cause our skin are getting darkened by the sun. Or was it the radiation from Japan's tsunami incident? Hehehe..

Noticed our red ice cream box in the middle of the table? That box could fit at least 60 pieces of Malaysian ice-cream and one of our most valuable asset to date. We sold so much ice cream and even bought a new one! ^^

Our business rocks and the most important thing is? WE HAD FUN AND LOOK FORWARD TO OPEN THE STALL EVERY SINGLE DAY! 

Umbrella for Street Stall

On the day before we opened our stall on 28th of March 2011, we went to a shop in Sri Kembangan to purchase another asset; umbrella. For your information, Malaysia is a warm weather country. If you stand outside at noon, the temperature could go up easily between 30 - 36 celcius. You can imagine the heat right? It's just like inside a sauna albeit a bigger one; outside! Hehehe..

Fatty bombom trying out the umbrella for the first time. We purchased this umbrella from MYR95. It is suprisingly very light and the smallest umbrella we could get. The shop sells many type and sizes of umbrellas

The lady explaining the proper way to open and close the umbrella so we may

use the umbrella for a long time. If we mishandle the umbrella, the usage life will

be shortened.

How to properly stack it after usage.

The lady in blue shirt is making a very big canvas canopy. You could see a few completed umbrellas stacked but ours are cheaper and smaller. The one in the picture are about MYR125.

How to make Ice Cream Malaysia

Have you tried Malaysian ice cream before? It's such a simple ice cream, nothing so fussy about the method to make one but the taste is heavenly on your taste bud. I can assure you that! ^^

Malaysian Ice Cream recipe

Ingredients

1. Mineral water
2. Sugar
3. Any flavor of your preferences
4. Ice cream plastic bag

How to

Mix some water with sugar and flavor. Fill in the mixture into the ice cream plastic bag. Tie a knot at the end of the plastic bag. Lastly, freeze it. You can enjoy it best especially in warm weather country like Malaysia.

This is a mixture of preserved fruit, water, orange flavor and sugar.

Normally called as Asam boi ice cream.

This is a concoction of Milo, sweetened milk, water and sugar.

Our precious freezer, just for ice cream but we had problem with

it as it couldn't freeze the ice cream even after we left the ice cream

whole night! Definitely will reprimand the seller. It's not a cheap freezer!

Syrup, sarsi and orange flavor. We prepared some ice cubes to put

into the ice cream container too. So far, our daily sales top at about

80 pieces of ice cream per 1 hour sales in the afternoon. Nice right?

Do you think that 20 cents per ice cream is very cheap? 

I bought a Malaysian ice cream in the year of 1993 for 20 cents too. 

It is crazily cheap, right? ^^