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Tag: Harvey Norman

  • Which is the best Home & Electronics retailer in Singapore?

    Which is the best Home & Electronics retailer in Singapore?

    Furniture, home appliances and electronics. These are just some must-haves in every home but where’s the best place in Singapore to get them? AsiaOne wants you to tell us where is the best to go.

    AsiaOne People’s Choice Awards 2016 is constantly seeking to honour the best brands, services and products in Singapore. This year, five new categories including Best Home & Electronics Retailer were added to reflect changing consumer trends in Singapore.

    Members of the public have helped to shortlist a number of companies and nominees Best Denki, Challenger Singapore, Courts, Crate and Barrel, Gain City, Harvey Norman, IKEA Singapore and Mustafa Centre are seeking for your votes to be named the winner in the first Best Home & Electronics Retailer category.

    Top retail players from overseas

    High-end lifestyle brand Crate and Barrel is a retail chain offering a variety of stylish furniture, kitchenware and other home essentials.

    Started in Chicago by Gordon and Carole Segal in 1962, the company grew into an international brand with outlets in the United States and Canada, a far cry from its humble beginnings with just one employee and not even having a cash register, according to its website.

    The brand opened its five-storey flagship store at Orchard Gateway in April 2014, drawing customers in with its exquisite furniture and quirky kitchen gadgets. Their first Singapore outlet opened the previous year at ION Orchard.

    With a focus on furniture and home interior design, IKEA is another tough international competitor to beat under this category.

    The Swedish store has two massive outlets in Singapore and is a popular place for families to go to on weekends, thanks to its array of delicious and affordable food selection.

    The one-stop furniture shop aims to fulfil all your housing needs from sofas, work tables, mattresses, bed frames, decorative mirrors to even kitchen wares and plants. Even if you’re not looking for anything in particular, you just might end up with a useful kitchen tool, a set of new bedsheets and a basket full of Swedish biscuits and candies.

    IKEA is an establishment that also excites shoppers with their annual catalogues which are filled with colour photographs and home decor ideas.

    Local brands stake a claim on home ground

    Not to be beat, home-grown brands Challenger Singapore, Gain City and Mustafa Centre with their affordable pricing, friendly services and wide selection of goods, can seduce readers for their votes.

    If you need anything IT-related, Challenger may probably be the first place you will think of.

    At its outlets in town and in the heartlands, you can talk to store consultants and figure out which product best suits your needs at your own pace.

    Other than selling hardware, the shops also have an inventory of products you might not expect to find like lamps, cameras, mobile phones, audio speakers and toys.

    You might be familiar with Gain City, as advertisements featuring their latest promotions are regularly carried in newspapers .

    Starting out as a company for commercial and residential air-conditioning needs in 1981, the business grew to become a retail giant incorporating electronics products and lifestyle goods.

    If you’re looking furnish a new home, a visit to their Sungei Kadut outlet might be a good place to start . But take heed, this new outlet is a whopping 11 storeys high and can be daunting for the uninitiated.

    Cheap and good is what comes to mind when we talk about home-grown Mustafa Centre. Started in 1973, the company began as a humble 900 sq ft shop and expanded to what it is today – a 150,000 sq ft space offering shoppers 24 hours of retail therapy.

    Unbeknownst to many, Mustafa at one point even sold cars which were parallel-imported, according to its website. Today, the company which is housed in a multi-storey building with its own supermarket, also offers foreign exchange and travel services.

    Which is your favourite place for all your home and electronics shopping needs? Let us know through your votes in the AsiaOne People’s Choice Awards!

    Cast your votes here and stand a chance to win $200 vouchers, an Apple Watch, a Dyson Pure Cool Purifier or a Microsoft Surface Pro 4 in one of our weekly lucky draws.

    Winners will be announced at an awards ceremony to be held in April 2016.

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  • Harvey Norman expands with new flagship megastore

    Harvey Norman expands with new flagship megastore

    Australian department store giant Harvey Norman has expanded its presence in Singapore with a new flagship store in the Central Business District despite a downturn in the retail sector that has crippled many operators here.

    The three-storey, 100,000 sq ft superstore, officially opened in Millenia Walk on Thursday, may seem a risky move but chief executive Katie Page shrugged off notions that she may be betting against the market odds.

    “The retail business is competitive all the time, it didn’t just start becoming challenging. We’ve been in this business for 32 years and there is not one year for me that hasn’t been competitive,” she told The Straits Times .

    “You have to keep evolving your business, you have to make it appealing to your customers, give them an experience. You don’t just open a store, not put in the effort like (the flagship store), and expect customers to shop with you.”

    The megastore, which has replaced Harvey Norman’s old 45,000 sq ft outlet in Millenia Walk, is the largest homemaker department store in the CBD.

    The expansion comes at a time when retailer businesses across Singapore are suffering from cut-throat competition, high operating costs and fragile consumer sentiment.

    Well-known brands such as French retailer Carrefour and the Japanese fashion label Lowrys Farm have beaten a retreat from Singapore in recent times.

    The challenge is also evident in Millenia Walk, with Japanese department store Parco shutting its doors in February last year.

    But Ms Page stressed that she has no issue with the location, which was the site for Harvey Norman’s first store in 2001.

    She said the massive floor size is the strategic advantage she has been seeking for years in Singapore.

    “We never had the space for furniture and bedding like we do now, and in Millenia Walk, we have the opportunity to show Singapore what the Harvey Norman brand truly is.

    “So when some retailers say it’s tough for them to do business, I say it’s tough for us that we had not been able to show our full brand like we do in Australia or Malaysia.

    “Having a flagship like this sets the brand, something you can’t do online. You must have the physical space that tells the world what you’re about.”

    Ms Page declined to reveal how much was invested in the new shop, saying only that it was a significant amount for which its return can be achieved “very quickly”.

    “We will know over the next six months where this store really sits within our group in business terms, but I am thinking that this will be as good as our No. 1 store in the world,” she said.

    Harvey Norman, which operates 15 outlets in Singapore, has included some novel features in the shop, including Singapore’s first Fujifilm Wonder Photo Shop and the first Microsoft in-store outlet.

    Ms Page added: “When I sat down with (Millenia Walk owner and) Pontiac Land’s Kwee Liong Phing – a very good friend of mine – about 12 months ago to discuss our plans, we decided for it to be nothing short of the best homemaker department store in the world.

    “This is our largest store in Asia and we want it to be our hub for the region. We’ve got 100,000 sq ft… right in the middle of the city centre. I don’t think you will find that combination anywhere in Asia.”

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