Building a business, line by line

In the late morning heat in Battambang, Samphors straightens a row of bright product banners above her cookstoves and laughs at herself. “I often avoided customers who negotiated too much,” she says.

By seven each morning, the shutters are up. She sweeps the floor, plugs in kettles to test them, and lines the stoves up by size—small ones near the entrance, heavier models stacked at the back.

For years, the shop ran mostly on memory. Sales, stock, and expenses lived in her head. By evening, the day’s transactions blurred together. She counted the cash twice, trying to work out what had moved and whether there would be enough left to pay the next supplier.

Last April, that routine shifted. She joined the Higher Tier Cooking Component (HTCC) and began attending business development (BD) training supported by SNV and local authorities. The first change was simple: write everything down.

Every evening, she opened a notebook and recorded what she sold, what she earned, and what she spent. “The first month of tracking sales felt tedious,” she recalls.

Slowly, the numbers revealed patterns she hadn’t noticed before — which stove sizes sold fastest, which brands lingered on the shelf, which days brought more customers. Within months, she was ordering stock based on records rather than guesswork. “I joined the project first for its incentives, but it quickly became much more than that,” she says. “When I started recording my sales in the first month, I realised I had sold 30 stoves, and I set a goal to reach 50. That goal gave me focus. Over time, with the support of the SNV team and the BD training, my sales grew beyond what I thought was possible."

During the training sessions, shop owners compared notes. One introduced a customer loyalty card. Another offered basic maintenance services. Small adjustments, shared across plastic chairs and notebooks.

Samphors tried the point-saving card system, where customers earn stamps for each purchase and redeem them later for small discounts. Not everyone trusted it at first.

“Not everything changed smoothly,” she says. “When I first introduced a point-saving card system, where customers earn stamps for each purchase, redeemable for small discounts, some regular customers were sceptical. They thought it was a trick.”

Some older customers still prefer cash and ignore the cards entirely. Others keep them carefully folded in their wallets and return to collect the next stamp.

The cooperative relationship with SNV provided structure without micromanagement. Technical support helped her set up financial tracking systems, but daily decisions remained hers. Local government officials connected retailers and created informal networks to share supplier contacts and market insights.

Outside the shop, smoke from charcoal fires still hangs low over the neighbourhood. Across rural Cambodia, more than 70% of households continue to rely on biomass for cooking, exposing families to indoor air pollution while adding pressure on nearby forests. Her shop sits at the edge of that gradual shift, where familiar cooking methods meet newer electric options on the same shelves.

The product range has expanded to include kettles, rice cookers, and other small appliances that complement cleaner cooking. A modest social media page now brings in enquiries from customers she has never met.

More noticeably, her approach has changed. Instead of stepping back when negotiations begin, she stays with customers longer, explaining features, demonstrating products, and offering advice. Conversations stretch. People return with neighbours or relatives. Other shop owners stop by to ask how she tracks expenses or manages stock. Suppliers prioritise her orders because payments are steady. "The numbers tell me I’m doing something right", she says, pointing to the sales chart.

In the quieter hours of the afternoon, she stands behind the counter and updates her ledger, the pages filling steadily with neat rows of figures. Outside, a neighbour pauses at the doorway to look at the appliances stacked inside. “Business is about more than just selling things,” she reflects.

She closes the book, steps out from behind the counter, and begins another conversation.