These days, it is not uncommon to see that our favorite businesses like restaurants or coffee shops have already closed down. The costs of operations are greater than the meager income these businesses have been earning since the
pandemic and lockdowns started.
Temporary closure does in fact make sense, according to Presidential Adviser on Entrepreneurship and Go Negosyo founder Joey Concepcion. It is wiser to padlock the business temporarily than dip into the working capital and even the savings of entrepreneurs just to keep businesses open. Close it down when cash flow turns negative, is his advice. He added that it is not the proper time to be a hero.
Everyone, from the big businessmen to small entrepreneurs, is affected by the pandemic. Many have turned to opportunities in agriculture or online selling/marketing since these are in demand these days. Even those displaced by unemployment, housewives, and ex-overseas Filipino workers have been giving the more established restaurants some competition.
To stand out from the rest, experts have offered some techniques like taking great photos, providing plenty of details about your products, being honest with advertising, researching your products or service thoroughly, and being realistic about pricing, considering that customers need to pay extra for delivery.
Concepcion, for his part, has called on the government to give the online sellers a tax reprieve even just for the rest of 2020. People are trying to make a living and survive the economic backlash of Covid-19, so the least the administration can do is to support their efforts.
However, the House committee on ways and means has just recently approved the substitute bill seeking to impose value-added tax on digital transactions in the country. While the measure is technically targeted toward huge foreign digital service providers like Shopee, Lazada, Zalora and the like, the small online sellers in the Philippines who are using these platforms are, of course, inevitably affected, along with the end customers who will end up paying for more expensive products and services.
Digital service providers, according to the bill, include the following: “A platform provider for promotion that uses the Internet to deliver marketing messages to attract buyers; a host of online auctions conducted through the Internet, where the seller sells the product or service to the person who bids the highest price; a supplier of digital services to a buyer in exchange for a regular subscription fee over the usage of the said product or service; a supplier of electronic and online services that can be delivered through information technology structure such as the Internet, or; a third party that acts as a conduit for goods or services offered by a supplier to a buyer and receives commission therefore.”