Here’s why brick-and-mortar shops are becoming a thing of the past in Singapore

The Internet is offering more alluring deals.

If you’ve noticed that the Great Singapore Sale (GSS) was tepid in 2016, then you are not alone. E-commerce is slowly conquering the local retail scene, and it’s putting out of fashion not only GSS, but also brick-and-mortar shops in Singapore.

According to RHB, the frequency of promotions happening online has rendered GSS less relevant for shoppers.

"These days, online sales are common and typically tie in with festivals. Some of the very popular ones include Singles’ Day, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, when prices get really slashed. Most online shoppers think that discounts during these big online sales seasons are more significant than the ones during the GSS. For smaller sales, there are always promotion periods leading to festivals like Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day etc," RHB stated.

On top of this, e-commerce is more creative and exerts more effort in engaging consumers.

“Due to the tightening of foreign labour in Singapore, brick-and-mortar stores face manpower shortages and high staff turnover. As a result, service quality has declined in Singapore’s retail scene. In contrast, our experience with online shopping reveals that e-commerce vendors tend to be a lot more proactive in engaging customers vs their traditional peers,” RHB revealed.

To grab and keep customers' interest, e-commerce shops deploy various methods such as personalised SMS reminders, member coupons and push adverts.

"We think these efforts are a lot more engaging. Such methods are also useful for online retailers to retain customers – they can conveniently click on the links to access the online store upon receiving such incentives, as opposed to travelling down to a physical store," stated RHB.

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