Big names are closing hundreds of retail outlets. Deserted shopping malls (ghost malls). Stocks of listed retailers sink to new low. Quarterly results are showing businesses getting from bad to worse. All due to the rise of e-commerce. People are now shopping online cos it's cheaper, more convenient and has more varieties than what you can get at the stores.
Singapore is also not spared.
Empty units are hoarded up with signboards or converted into display and seating areas so they do not look so empty. Many shop spaces are converted to food and beverage outlets as they are not as badly affected by online shops as retailers. After all, the rationale is that people still need to eat.
Even shopping malls in city center are also not spared. The famous shopping street Orchard Road is struggling and trying to gather ideas to rejuvenate the area such as considering converting the whole road into a pedestrian walkway.
I was at a shopping mall in the city one Sunday evening.
There were no customers in most of the shops on the third floor (highest level).
The second level was slightly better but most shops were empty.
The first floor got the heaviest traffic but not many people were actually shopping. They were heading somewhere.
Since it's dinner time, I thought the basement would be the most crowded where most of the food outlets are located.
It turned out the place was pretty quiet as well. There were about seven eating places with two to three tables filled and one with no customer at all.
Granted it's near to school's exams period and the possibility that many people are traveling overseas to take advantage of the public holiday and thus the less crowd, it's scary that there's not even one customer during dinner time. Could they be in the wrong shopping mall?
There was a period when there were new shopping malls opening every few months.
Did anyone recall an industry expert once said Singapore can afford to build more shopping malls when he compared the retail space per person against cities like Hong Kong, etc?
He has missed out on companies like Amazon, which by the way was founded in 1994.