Singapore bets recession won’t dim love for shopping malls
Link
SINGAPORE: Singapore, where shopping is a beloved national pastime, is betting three massive new malls on the island’s main retail strip can thrive despite a limp global economy.
The revamp of the city-state’s famous Orchard Road, along with two resorts featuring the country’s first casinos opening next year, is part of the government’s plans to make Singapore a regional tourist and shopping mecca and fuel a rebound from its worst recession ever.
But retailers on Orchard, which packs some 40 shopping centers into 2.5 kilometers, could struggle for some time. Locals and tourists are spending less while the addition of hundreds of new shops in nearly a fifth more retail space will further squeeze profits.
“The timing of the new malls wasn’t great,” said David Cohen, an economist at consultancy Action Economics in Singapore. “Sales could be soft for a while.”
So far this year, Singapore’s retail sales are down more than 10 percent from a year earlier. Big-ticket items – such as jewelry, cars and furniture – have been especially hard hit.
“We really started to feel the recession in November, and in the last few months sales have been recovering very gradually,” said Desmond Png, a manager at a Hugo Boss store in Ngee Ann City mall on Orchard. “Before, if a customer liked a shirt, and we had it in three colors, he’d buy all three.”
“Now he’s getting just one,” he added. – AP
Link
SINGAPORE: Singapore, where shopping is a beloved national pastime, is betting three massive new malls on the island’s main retail strip can thrive despite a limp global economy.
The revamp of the city-state’s famous Orchard Road, along with two resorts featuring the country’s first casinos opening next year, is part of the government’s plans to make Singapore a regional tourist and shopping mecca and fuel a rebound from its worst recession ever.
But retailers on Orchard, which packs some 40 shopping centers into 2.5 kilometers, could struggle for some time. Locals and tourists are spending less while the addition of hundreds of new shops in nearly a fifth more retail space will further squeeze profits.
“The timing of the new malls wasn’t great,” said David Cohen, an economist at consultancy Action Economics in Singapore. “Sales could be soft for a while.”
So far this year, Singapore’s retail sales are down more than 10 percent from a year earlier. Big-ticket items – such as jewelry, cars and furniture – have been especially hard hit.
“We really started to feel the recession in November, and in the last few months sales have been recovering very gradually,” said Desmond Png, a manager at a Hugo Boss store in Ngee Ann City mall on Orchard. “Before, if a customer liked a shirt, and we had it in three colors, he’d buy all three.”
“Now he’s getting just one,” he added. – AP
