The problem here is probably the boss is not around in the shop. What he did was to set up the shop, employ some workers, cashiers, packers, whatever and start the business going.
He might just pop in once in a while. Towards end of every month, he adds up total sales vs expenses and as long as he makes a profit and it keeps on improving, he might thought everything is OK.
At the moment there are not much competition, so he's quite satisfied presumbly.
When competition comes, monthly collection dips, he wakes up, trying to fine tune, it may be too late. China man's business lah, thats why, provision shops are slowly doing a dying trade.
Provision shops in the older estate around Singapore such as Queenstown, Bedok, Tiong Bahru to name a few are bought over by HDB, torn down for some other purposes.
Maybe what Punggol North need is a bigger shopping complex like Compass Point , Jurong Point or some other similar shopping centres of scale. Surely not a small shop here and there with totally no management skills.
Lets wait and see lah.