Its been more den a month since I've updated.
Nothing much to update about lately though, all the normal happenings in life. But there's one thing my frenz and me have been discussing lately though.
We have been discussing about the downfall of the local retail scene in singapore. More and more retail shops have been closing down shop by shop, branches by branches.
Alot of the retail shops are unable to sustain the high rental prices of the local shopping centres. As whem location gets more popular, the rental increases as the landlords assume that the retail shops have high revenues and increases the rental. When this happens, the shops are unable to sustain and they close down.
Whenever this happens, the landlord will just say, " its ok, they dun renew, there will be someone that will take up this shop space. "
When they have this mentality, its gonna be a goner for them. They always assume that a popular spot will always be wanted by retail stores and they will just increase the rental for it. What if nobody wants to take up that spot ? They will be left with empty shops which will be a bad impression to people who wanna take up that shop space as people will feel surely there's something wrong with that spot.
Landlords always do not realise all the things they are doing is a double-edged sword. They will just alwayz think a good spot will get them a high rental but they always didn't realise what they are doing is just killing themselves and killing the retail scene in Singapore.
Yes, of course I understand the owner of the shopping mall or the company ghat owns the shopping mall will wanna be able to break even the purchase of the shopping centre so they will constantly increase the rental of the shops inside. But what they did not think of is if there is no one taking up the shop space, they will take an even longer time to break even.
When rental increases, the shops will have to sell their items at a higher price as they need to sustain their upkeep, which turns shoppers off as the things are getting too expensive.
Now we're living in the world of technology which the internet plays a very big part of our lives.
Now its like 90% of the stuffs retailers sell, can be found on the internet.
Amazon, Playasia, Taobao, Qoo10.
All these websites sell tons of items. So many that you may need a few hours to just browse through all the items listed in their websites. And of course, most of the items are sold at a lower price that you can find in any retail shops here. Of course the con is that you won't be able to get the item immediately as compared to getting from a retail store. But of course if you are willing to wait for like 2 to 3 weeks for the item to be shipped over to your doorstep, u will surely have saved urself quite abit of money.
I myself also frequently buy items online from website. I always buy kpop jpop albums from websites as there are very limited audioCD stores here in Singapore. Even the biggest audioCD store, HMV, have closed its last branch here.
Its so difficult to sustain that HMV have to sell albums so expensive that in the end nobody buys from them and buy online, that includes me.
I'll just give an example.
Few months ago, I was looking for Apink's new mini album and so I happened to be nearby HMV and so I decided to go in and have a look and I saw the album that I wanted to buy.
$37.90.
Holy fuck ! $37.90 ! Thats like so expensive !
So after that, I decided to go to my regular online store website and have a look at how much they were selling.
USD$10.90
OMG, look at the difference ! Even with added shipping charges of the maximum of USD10 which adds up to USD20.90. After all the conversion, it will end up at around SGD30 which is $7.90 cheaper den what HMV is selling and it will be delivered to my letterbox or doorstep, which saves me so much trouble.
With all these things happening in the online world and landlords giving us skyhigh rental prices, how are the retail shops gonna survive in this world.
One less retail shop means less jobs for people which increases the unemployment rate of Singapore.
Gahmen and landlords, pleaae do spare a thought more for your own countrymen and help your own people, and stop helping " outsiders " please !
