International chains pull down the shutters on back of intensifying shopper dearth

Consumers are shying away from department stores.

A dearth of shoppers has pushed some multinational to pull down the shutters at some of their outlets here, a report by Savills revealed.

Among the more high-profile victims are Marks and Spencer and John Little’s, both owned by Al-Futtiam group, which closed three outlets each in March.

“[These closures] has brought to light the sluggish sales in the department store segment, largely due to the change in shoppers’ habits and preferences,” stated Savills.

Data from the Singapore Department of Statistics (SDOS) show that the annual retail sales growth for department stores has slowed significantly during the last three years from 2012 to 2014.

“This slowdown spurs department stores to seek new retailing strategies to differentiate themselves from both their traditional competitors and as well as online retailers. Developing an additional online presence may therefore be the way forward for traditional retailers,” stated the report.

Reaching the people who run Asia's businesses is harder than it used to be.

Inboxes are crowded. Attention is short. The executives you most want to reach — the founders, CFOs, and operators who actually move budgets — are the hardest to find through the usual channels. If you're building a company, a category, or a reputation, you already know this.

We've spent twenty years building the room they read. Singapore Business Review is where senior decision makers in Singapore and across Southeast Asia come for business coverage they can't get elsewhere — in print, online, and in person at the summits and roundtables we host across seven markets.

If you have something these readers should know about — a point of view worth publishing, a product worth their attention, an event worth their time — we'd like to hear what you're trying to do.

Book a meeting

| Or download the media kit (PDF)

240,000 senior readers quarterly in print Top 1,700 Singapore companies reached

7 markets across Southeast Asia