The shopping frenzy continues after Christmas as Orchard Road and neighbourhood malls lay on the post-Christmas sales to reel in the crowds.
Mall tunes have been switched as well, as many people head out to shop for the Chinese New Year, on Jan 28 next year, or to stock up for the new school year.
Ms Donna Tan, 33 , an administrative executive who was at the Nex shopping mall in Serangoon, said she was taking advantage of the current sales to get both Chinese New Year clothes and school shoes for her daughters, aged 10 and 14.
She said: “There isn’t much time left for Chinese New Year shopping actually. The sales are also good now, so we took today and yesterday off to shop.”
In total, she spent about $300 at Nex, Changi City Point and Tampines Mall over the past two days.
Student Salwa Mayra, 19, waited for the post-Christmas sales to score better deals.
Ms Salwa, who went shopping in Orchard Road and at Nex, said she bought clothes at Zara at half the usual price. Others, such as Ms Miki Chua, 40, a teacher, also decided to wait until after Christmas to beat the crowds.
“I looked around during the Christmas period but it was too crowded, so I decided to come back now,” said Ms Chua, who had bags from Forever 21 and Etude House.
Stores such as H&M and Robinsons continued to offer discounts of up to 70 per cent.
Several malls and department stores reported healthy post-Christmas crowds and sales.
A Tangs spokesman said the sales figures for Monday, the day after Christmas, were “quite encouraging”, without giving details. The sale at Tangs goes on till Jan 2.
A spokesman for the orchardgateway shopping mall also said that the crowds on Monday were on the “positive side”.
Takashimaya Singapore said that while there was just a 5 per cent increase in crowd figures on Boxing Day this year compared with last year, Takashimaya Department Store achieved a “double-digit increase in sales” over last year’s figures.
Ms Stephanie Ho, general manager at Frasers Centrepoint Malls, said overall traffic at the company’s malls, which include Causeway Point and Waterway Point, was boosted by up to 20 per cent.
“This may be attributed to promotions, including post-Christmas and back-to-school sales, over the long festive weekend,” she said.
Despite healthy crowds, a survey conducted by e-commerce solutions company SAP Hybris that was released earlier this month found that only 39 per cent of shoppers still enjoy browsing in purely brick- and-mortar stores.
More popular were stores with both a physical and digital presence, which 68 per cent of those surveyed cited as their top shopping option. Consumers were also less interested in more new-age services such as mobile payments through a digital wallet.
Singapore Polytechnic senior retail lecturer Sarah Lim said that while an increase in transactions or crowds may not translate into an increase in sales due to marked- down prices, clearing stock is also important.
“They have to make room for new stock, especially because Chinese New Year is coming soon. Also, crowds have the tendency to attract more crowds, who may end up buying,” she said.
