Orchard Road retailers stock up, widen festive offerings for busier year-end season

DESPITE recession fears, homegrown retailers along Orchard Road are stocking up in anticipation of higher footfall and spending this festive season as tourists return – though demand may still fall short of pre-pandemic levels.

Fashion retailer Love Bonito expects footfall at its stores to be 80 to 90 per cent higher this December than the same period last year. While locals account for most of the spending at its Ion Orchard and 313@Somerset outlets, tourist receipts have been “slowly increasing”, though not yet to pre-Covid levels, said Tan Yilyn, vice-president of retail and country director for Singapore.

Footwear and accessories retailer Charles & Keith does not see a return to pre-pandemic sales yet, either. The brand expects footfall and sales to rise by 5 to 10 per cent in the festive season compared with October. This is in light of the holiday season, gradual border reopenings elsewhere, and the return of tourism, said a spokesperson.

This year, for the first time since the pandemic began, Orchard Road’s annual Christmas light-up festivities are taking place in person and at full scale. At a media preview of the light-up in October, Orchard Road Business Association chairman Mark Shaw said the precinct is “well on the road” to returning to pre-pandemic levels of tourism, and will hopefully do so by 2023.

Some retailers have already surpassed pre-Covid sales. For Japanese lifestyle store Atomi at Mandarin Gallery, sales for November so far are up 30 per cent from the same period in 2019. Owner Andrew Tan said tourists account for about 30 to 40 per cent of sales, up from 10 per cent in 2019.

“We are still seeing pent-up demand strolling through… I have customers who are coming in from Indonesia, Australia, even as far as Canada. I think the momentum is going quite strong for December.”

Latest official figures show that Singapore’s retail sales rose 11.2 per cent year on year in September, extending the previous month’s 13.3 per cent rise. On a month-on-month seasonally adjusted basis, retail sales were up 3.3 per cent.

Stocking up for the season

Compared with last year, retail brands have expanded their range of products and stocked up on inventory in preparation for the holiday shopping season. Stationery and leather crafts label Bynd Artisan, located at Ion Orchard, has doubled its offerings in this year’s Christmas collection.

Integrated retail and incubation space Design Orchard has brought in 30 new local labels for its Christmas pop-up, ongoing till Jan 4. The retail showcase’s general manager Julynn Tay noted that the space saw “record” footfall during the 2021 festive season, following the launch of an exclusive capsule collection. “Due to that, we are certainly hopeful for this year,” she said.

Atomi has “stocked up quite a fair bit – easily 50 per cent more – in anticipation for a strong finishing for December”, said Tan. In response to demand from tourists, the shop introduced on-the-go tax refunds in November.

Jewellery brand By Invite Only installed tax refund machines at its two Orchard stores in April. Tourist spending at its stores accounted for about 15 to 20 per cent of overall sales last quarter and has risen further this quarter, with customers from Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia.

This festive season, By Invite Only’s owner Trixie Khong has increased stocks of her pieces by 30 to 40 per cent, and ordered them earlier from suppliers.

But she noted the “unpredictability” of mall traffic in this period as Singaporeans go abroad, as well as the prolonged absence of mainland Chinese tourists. “Tourists are not returning as forcefully as Singaporeans are travelling overseas.”

Concerns about an economic recession, coupled with recent reports of mass layoffs, could also “instil fear in shoppers and cause them to tighten their purse strings”, she added. “In terms of spending, we feel that customers are more hesitant or they are putting in more consideration before purchasing, and there are more who are browsing.”

While retail footfall and spending along Singapore’s prime shopping belt should improve year-on-year in spite of economic headwinds, both are “unlikely” to recover to 2019 levels, said Neeta Lachmandas, director of Singapore Management University’s Institute of Service Excellence (ISE).

“In addition to the economic uncertainty and inflationary pressures, tourism – a big driver of sales for the Orchard shopping belt – is not quite back where it was in terms of numbers. However, I think we can be quietly optimistic for retail activity,” she said.

She cited the ISE’s latest Customer Satisfaction Index of Singapore survey, conducted between January and April 2022: “We observed that consumers are gravitating back towards physical stores, with more saying they are shopping in-store than a year ago.”

Tan, for one, is keeping his chin up: “We are generally optimistic, while staying cautious about 2023. I would say the worst is over – if we can survive the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, we should be quite ready for the new year.”