COMPETITION BETWEEN RETAIL CLUSTERS-MALLS AT THE BAY VS. TRADITIONAL ORCHARD

Abstract

Singapore's retail profile has been evolving constantly over the past few years due to the rapid pace of urbanisation as well as global retail industry competition. Though Orchard Road continues to be the favourite retail area for most, in the past few years there have been many changes and developments in the Central Area which have created a huge impact on the area itself. One of the greatest changes is the clustering of malls in the Marina Centre which is beginning to act as a major competitor to the Orchard Belt. This dissertation seeks to examine whether this new cluster will replace the Orchard Belt in terms of popularity for shopping activities. A survey was conducted along the selected malls in both clusters. The data collected was first sorted out into data categories before tabulation into frequency distributions. The Poisson Gravity Model was then used to analyse the shoppers' demographic and socio-economic characteristics and mall-specific attributes with the frequency of visits. Probit and Logit models were also adopted to analyse the likelihood of cross-shopping between the two clusters. The results show that the Marina cluster enjoys a higher frequency of shopping visits as compared to the Orchard Belt. This led to higher consumer expenditure per shopping trip in the cluster as well. In addition, shoppers tend to stay and shop in the Marina cluster rather than cross-shop to the Orchard cluster. Comparatively, when shoppers are at the Orchard cluster, the reverse is true. The results reveal that the cluster at Marina Centre is likely to exert a considerable impact on the Orchard Belt as the shoppers are likely to be drawn away from the traditional cluster to the new cluster. With such keen competition, the author suggests that the management reviews their retail strategies in order to continue to stay competitive. Lastly, further research can be done after the completion of the new LRT line as well as the makeover of Marina Square as these might create a stronger move of the shoppers from the Orchard cluster to the Marina cluster.