Brick-and-mortar with its back against the wall

[SINGAPORE] If life were theatre, retailers would be the Greek chorus. Of late, theirs has been a tale of woe, with rentals high and manpower scarce. Online players are nipping at their heels, local shoppers are increasingly price-conscious and foreign ones are kept at bay by the strong Singapore dollar.

Even so, life (and the show) must go on, and some retailers are regrouping or making do in the face of untenable conditions.

Clothing retailer FJ Benjamin, for example, now has a 15 per cent vacancy rate for employees across its network of stores in Singapore. To combat this, the firm moves staff from underperforming stores to those that are doing well, says Ian Lim, CEO of FJ Benjamin (Singapore). The underperforming stores are then downsized or earmarked for closure.