Spike in outbound travel dampens small retailers’ sales
Realities on the ground might not be captured by aggregated official statistics, say industry players
OFFICIAL retail sales data shows growth, but some small retailers in Singapore have seen sales drop by up to 30 per cent year on year (yoy), as increased outbound travel dampens takings at the till.
In an informal poll by tenant advocacy group Singapore Tenants United for Fairness (SGTuff), 35 of 41 retailers said sales from January to May this year have been “worse” or “much worse” than in the year-ago period.
This is in contrast to economy-wide retail sales data published by the Department of Statistics each month.
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