this micro-retail store was nicer than most grocery stores in Brooklyn. And their selection of toilet paper rivals any store I've ever visited

These micro retailers are part of the 4 billion people around the globe who earn less than $3000 per year. While few of the micro retailers have a system in place to track how much of a product they are buying and selling, the majority of the micro retailers do own a cell phone.

David is creating a system for mobile phones that will enable retailers to price-compare, track merchandise purchases and sales. By collecting the purchase and sales data, the system will help retailers to make more profitable decisions for their business. The data collection will also be available for purchase by multinational corporations who up until now have very little information about the poorest contingent of the population who are buying their products.

Frogtek is still in its early stages. A prototype phone has been created. David and the business students are in Cali on a research trip to study how the grocery stores currently operate so that the phone applications that are developed serve the needs of the store owners.

Today we went to four micro-retails stores to learn how purchases and sales are currently tracked. The stores ranged in size, but most were situated in some of the poorer neighborhoods of Cali. Besides noting the utter lack of tracking systems, the students noted the wide selection of different brands in the toilet paper aisle. At one shop we counted eight different brands of toilet paper. This one product took up about 1/8 of the entire store's shelf space!