Southeast Asia’s First Online Dollar Shop Launches to Meet Demands of Singapore Shoppers Hungry for Cheaper Alternatives

Singapore, Singapore, July 09, 2016 --(PR.com)-- As consumers in Singapore are looking for additional alternative places to shop and the retail scene in Singapore’s traditional shopping malls in Orchard Road are going through a hard time due to increasing rental and staffing costs, a shift from the traditional brick-and-mortar retail model towards digital and online commerce is quickly taking place in Singapore.

“As we look around the traditional stronghold retail spaces across Orchard Road, Jurong Gateway and Suntec City area, we find it increasingly surprising to see more and more shops displaying moving out and closing down signs. With an exception of a few shining stars, retailers in Singapore are finding it harder to survive due to the escalating rent costs, the reduction of density of shoppers in malls due to the doubling of retail space available over the last few years, as well as the availability of additional online shopping sites which became popular with the younger crowd over the last few years.”

“In the 1990s and 2000s in Singapore, when people wanted to buy the latest clothes or home appliances, everyone would head down to Robinsons, Marks & Spencers or Zara to check out the latest products. Today, when individuals want to buy the latest clothes, half will still head down to the stores to buy from Orchard Road, but the other half will head down to Blogshops to make their purchases online. This means that the number of physical shoppers has decreased by half. This is only going to get more prevalent as more of the digital generation enters into the workforce, which is leading to a gradual permanent shift in consumer buying behaviour from brick-and-mortar towards online,” says Grace Wong, Co-Founder at Shopinsea.

“We realized that even in these tougher economic climate this year, consumers in Singapore still want to shop but they are looking for a place that will give them more while paying less. That is why Shopinsea was created to exactly do that – Instead of spending $30 for a single waist belt in Orchard Road, a belt costs around $2 to $3 for ladies on our platform which means that they are able to purchase 10 to 15 belts of various designs and colours for the price of one,” says Andre Loh, another Co-Founder at Shopinsea who left his full-time career as a Management Associate Graduate in DBS Bank to join the team full time.

Danella Lim, the third Co-Founder at Shopinsea mentions, “That is what we hope to achieve at Shopinsea, which is to bring the enjoyment and thrill of shopping to Singaporeans across a wide variety of products from Home and Décor to Lifestyle all the way to Gifts and For Kids, yet still keep them incredibly affordable for the everyday Singaporean. We offer thousands of products across various categories, yet still over half of all our products are priced under $2. We even provide free shipping for purchases above $50, which means that all a customer needs to do is to purchase their items, and we will take care of the rest straight to their doorstep at no extra charge if they meet $50.”

Comprising a team of four Singaporean Co-Founders with two females within the founding team, Shopinsea is the First Online Dollar Shop in Southeast Asia that strives to bring online shopping enjoyment to the next level across the region.

“I think I am a lucky person, not only am I working on helping Singaporeans get more for their money, with our founding team having an equal balance of men and women, we can even be a Singaporean role model for the European and Western companies to follow with half of the management team made up of women,” Andre jokes with a smile.