Real Cost

With the diarrhea of  news and media flux of everything and anything, its hard to pay attention and see how it all links up.

I was reading yesterday on

Why S’pore needs Project Jewel (and more malls)

The usual sarcasm of course follows on Facebook including my own on how the powers that be do not understanding the real needs. Seriously, the same brands and shops again and again and again...? I mean how many fucking times do you walk into the same clothing store twice on the same day.. you see one you seen them all right! Furthermore people like me will only use these places, if  at all, as a form of window shopping. Literally.

Go there take a real physical look see and or try on for sizes. Come back and hunt the same for cheaper online. I am not gonna be enamored by the glitzy walls in those building and fool myself into thinking that it is really worth to pay an additional 30-40% for the exact same thing that gets delivered to my door. Ya I have air-conditioning too right in the comfort of my own home pounding away at the "enter" key if need be.. Fuck all your overpriced ugly monumental malls.

Then for all the talks in the article about attracting and increasing retail... today the free canine ass-wipe paper shafted into my gate each morning opened up to the article below

You tell me its a waste to buy cheap electric kettles but conveniently forget that many a time cheap is still not cheap and many are only buying the cheaper products because of affordability issues. A large part of the cost is because of the sky high rents in Singapore.

Young aspiring people gets killed trying to set up shop. Brick and Mortar folks fold up due to high rentals... yet you are gonna have ten shops in each mall selling the same cheap electric kettle followed by another ten more malls to be built?

Some day I do wish that I could perform magic like swapping all the lives on board MH370 for all the head in the ass decision makers out there. *Poof*...never to be found.



27/6/2014
Update...
KARMA IS A BITCH EH :)

Glitzy street no more: Vanishing Chinese tourists leave Orchard Road’s landlords hanging

"Desperate owners are starting to get panicky.
The country’s posh shopping center is bearing the brunt of the sharp decline in Chinese tourist arrivals. According to Maybank Kim Eng, short-term headwinds are in the forecast for Orchard Road’s landlords.
The report stated that Orchard Road shops are dealing with a new Chinese law that bans “forced shopping” for tourists.
Hoteliers are also now focusing on corporate and transient segments as tour groups become more scarce.
“Our conversations with Orchard Road landlords suggest that the current headwinds may be short term in nature. Chinese visitors have been declining since last October, partly because of a new mainland law
that bans “forced shopping”, which prompted sharp rises in prices for outbound tours in China. In addition, many hotels along Orchard Road have progressively moved away from the wholesale customer segment (tour groups) to focus on the higher-yielding corporate and transient segments,” the report stated.
Here’s more from Maybank Kim Eng:

The Chinese are no longer coming in droves. Following the political upheaval in Thailand and the mysterious disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, there have been concerns that this may have a negative impact on Chinese visitor arrivals.
Mainland Chinese typically holiday in Singapore, as part of their tours to Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. Based on 2013 data, mainland Chinese were the second-largest international visitor group to Singapore (2.3m) after the Indonesians (3.1m).
Anecdotal evidence points to Chinese tourists cancelling their travel plans to Southeast Asia in recent months. The initial signs of a slowdown are already evident with Chinese visitor arrivals down 31% and 14% YoY in 4Q13 and 1Q14, respectively.

More recently, the April retail sales of watches and jewellery, which are highly dependent on tourist purchases, registered a sharp YoY decline of 16.3%.

The law was in response to recent years of public outcry in China over extremely cheap tours tied to “forced shopping”. The law, which took effect at the start of the seven-day National Day “Golden Week” holiday on 1 Oct 2013.
The upshot was substantial increases in tourist agency costs, especially salaries for tour guides, who previously received commissions from designated shops. As a result, sales of such tours have fallen, even at what is a peak period for holidays."