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SINGAPORE - It is official. German premium car manufacturer Porsche is setting up a new retail business in Singapore, a move first reported by The Straits Times last month. A new $1 company called Porsche Singapore Pte Ltd has been set up for the purpose, ST has learnt. According to the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (Acra), the company was incorporated on March 22 this year. Its main activities were stated as retail of automobile, parts, accessories and lifestyle products, as well as the repair and maintenance of motor vehicles. These are all functions currently undertaken exclusively by Porsche dealer Stuttgart Auto, which is part of Mr Karsono Kwee's multi-franchise Eurokars Group. According to Acra, the sole shareholder of Porsche Singapore Pte Ltd is Porsche Asia Pacific, the manufacturer's regional office stationed here. But Porsche Asia Pacific managing director Arthur Willmann told The Straits Times the shareholding will change to include Eurokars "over the next weeks and months". https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/transport/porsche-sets-up-new-company-to-retail-service-cars-here Some of us complain about rising petrol prices, some of us complain about $100K COE, then there are some people busy buying Porsches that there is a whole new retail and service business just for Porsche owners. The rich getting richer! Wooooo. Porsche 万岁！

Big Box opened today! Yes, today, 27 Dec 2014. Big Box is a warehouse retail mall, located very near to Jurong East MRT station. We decided to go check it out. It was crowded! True to its name, it felt like a huge warehouse. The most interesting was the hypermarket on the ground floor, selling goods in a warehouse concept. Were the stuff sold at the hypermarket cheap? Not really. Some things seem a bit cheaper than say NTUC, but overall the prices were comparable. But I could be wrong. We didn't spend a lot of time in the hypermarket. There was also huge space devoted to the sale of furniture on the 2nd the 3rd floor. It felt like Big Box wanted to compete directly with the likes of Ikea in this respect. This was the first day of opening and things were still a bit messy. Still, this place is an interesting addition to the retail scene. Check out the video. http://youtu.be/cdulBMKBLlE

just like to know if any one has any idea on those mixed development private apartments that have retails and F&B on the ground levels and residential units on the top. I have notice that along balestier road there are abt 3 such developments popping up....wonder if these has good investment potential? hows the management fee like ?

Tesla has announced that it will close down most of its retail outlets in a move that will allow it to price its cars cheaper. According to Electrek, the electric car maker wants to focus on online sales as it says that 78% of the Model 3 orders the company received last year were placed online. Interestingly, it added on that 82% of Model 3 customers purchased the vehicle without test driving first. With that in mind, the company believes that there was no need to operate the 120 retail store that it has now and will be closing most of it down. Doing so will allow it to reduce prices for its vehicles by an average of 6% and give it the ability to produce the entry-level Model 3 earlier than anticipated. Furthermore, it has been reported that Tesla started removing commissions from retail employees earned from sales, prompting employees to speculate that the manufacturer has cut bonuses to try and push them out before Tesla needs to layoff staff and pay severance.

The retail mall will be managed by CapitLand. Nett rental return paid by Oxley. Is it worth to consider? https://www.viplaunch.sg/the-peak-shoppes-cambodia

Supermarket chain FairPrice opened a membership-only mega retail store at the FairPrice Hub in Joo Koon on Monday. The two-storey store, named Warehouse Club, sells items in larger than usual packaging, at discounts of up to 20 per cent. It stocks more than 4,000 products, including groceries, fresh and frozen food, electronics, household goods and health and beauty products. The store follows a similar format of successful membership-only stores overseas, such as Costco in the United States. FairPrice deputy chief executive of operations Gerry Lee said the supermarket chain has been progressively introducing various retail formats to cater to the changing lifestyles of its customers. "Today, we are proud to bring another exciting new retail format that aims to provide our members with quality products at the best value, through large discounts with bulk buys, multi-packs and exclusive brands," he said. Exclusive brands available at Warehouse Club includes Costco's Kirkland Signatures and Japanese green tea brand Ito En. Only registered members can purchase from the store, which spans over 80,000 sq ft. A one-year membership costs $35 for NTUC Union members and $50 for non-union members. Nearly 12,000 people have signed up since registration started in May this year. Source: http://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/more-singapore-stories/story/fairprice-opens-membership-only-mega-retail-store-modell#xtor=CS1-10

Looking for one that sells all sorts of accessories to shop.

It cuts both ways........ one side, retailers are suffering, another way, SG ppl are damm happy https://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/glitzy-street-no-more-vanishing-024300021.html Desperate owners are starting to get panicky. The country’s posh shopping center is bearing the brunt of the sharp decline in Chinese tourist arrivals. According to Maybank Kim Eng, short-term headwinds are in the forecast for Orchard Road’s landlords. The report stated that Orchard Road shops are dealing with a new Chinese law that bans “forced shopping” for tourists. Hoteliers are also now focusing on corporate and transient segments as tour groups become more scarce. “Our conversations with Orchard Road landlords suggest that the current headwinds may be short term in nature. Chinese visitors have been declining since last October, partly because of a new mainland law that bans “forced shopping”, which prompted sharp rises in prices for outbound tours in China. In addition, many hotels along Orchard Road have progressively moved away from the wholesale customer segment (tour groups) to focus on the higher-yielding corporate and transient segments,” the report stated. Here’s more from Maybank Kim Eng: The Chinese are no longer coming in droves. Following the political upheaval in Thailand and the mysterious disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, there have been concerns that this may have a negative impact on Chinese visitor arrivals. Mainland Chinese typically holiday in Singapore, as part of their tours to Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. Based on 2013 data, mainland Chinese were the second-largest international visitor group to Singapore (2.3m) after the Indonesians (3.1m). Anecdotal evidence points to Chinese tourists cancelling their travel plans to Southeast Asia in recent months. The initial signs of a slowdown are already evident with Chinese visitor arrivals down 31% and 14% YoY in 4Q13 and 1Q14, respectively. More recently, the April retail sales of watches and jewellery, which are highly dependent on tourist purchases, registered a sharp YoY decline of 16.3%. The law was in response to recent years of public outcry in China over extremely cheap tours tied to “forced shopping”. The law, which took effect at the start of the seven-day National Day “Golden Week” holiday on 1 Oct 2013. The upshot was substantial increases in tourist agency costs, especially salaries for tour guides, who previously received commissions from designated shops. As a result, sales of such tours have fallen, even at what is a peak period for holidays.

Just like to ask foryour take on shops selling stuff (electronic goods etc way above the RRP). Have come across a few shops especially in home reno....eg lightings, fans etc Maybe bros here can share some of the cases that you have encountered.

Anyone knows any good and affordable retail shop designer? Those that can draw out draft for free will be good also. Actually i do not mind getting final yr design students to come design the shop as their project as well. how to find them?

A Lobang to share, Currently M1 Shop are selling those Retail price Iphone 5 without Contract. Those who want to get a phone can purchase from them. The bad things is, u will need to get up very early as there is alway Auntie, uncle, student and FT queening for it. What i know that there are selling at 960, 1110 and 1260 for 16g, 32g and 64g respectively. Only available at M1 Main shop only and not Exclusive Dealers. The profit earn will quit alot if u planning to sell it off after getting it. 16G will let u earn around $330 Per set and 32G can also get around $230 if u find those dealer in Hardwarezone which doing exporting business. Limited stock is release by M1 Shop Every day in the morning. West mall, clementi and IMM are around 20 sets per day as according to my friend information. If u r free and nothing to do, u might wanna to queen up ealier in the morning to earn a decent monies. Hope this will help...

How big is this shopping mall? What about the parking? is it easy to navigate?

Was research for some petrol data and chance upon this report by the Competiton Commission of Singapore. Interesting read CCS report

i started to notice the salaries of retail and F&B are so low... No wonder FTs are hired.. Muji - $1300 monthly, shift work, 2 days off in a week Kenny Rogers - service staff $1050 and kitchen staff $1150 monthly with meals and incentives Feel free to add in what u know about other shops and restaurants

Hi all, Assuming you are running a retail chain, your sales curve actually behaved similarly with the customer spending trend. However, despite the increase in sales and customer spending, your customer count actually declining or stay very flat. Also assume that cost of living and inflation rate remain unchanged. Political situation and state of economy also remain stable. One uncertainty is population count and rate of residential build-up at your operating areas. Do you think this is good or bad for the business? Thank you very much for your comment. Regards,

Hi all, Since recently got a lot of topics asking about their pay scale especially from manufacturing sector. I am interested to know the average income for retail staffs as It is often associated with long hours and low pay with low education?.. Maybe I can start off: highest qualification; bscBM Post: Snr manager Remuneration: >$6000 depends on sale. Feel free to comment especially if u r working in retail as me.

hey, bought a couple of a housebrand. Threw the items away. 1) Housebrand corn: I hv never tasted sweet corn kernels that after steaming, hv no corn smell. And soggy to chew. 2) Housebrand peach: OMG. The sogginess. How do you view housebrands? Their quality? I'll rather spend a few cents or bucks more for safety and health.

Business Times - 19 Sep 2008 By R SIVANITHY IF YOU want a front-row lesson in first-class financial obfuscation for structured products, then look no further than the way the recently collapsed Minibond Series 3 notes was packaged and marketed. Up to $200 million of these notes were sold to a gullible retail public who probably thought they were buying a five-year bond issued by six leading banks that paid a 5 per cent coupon per year but were in reality, not only exposed to the US housing market but also to a complex credit default swap arrangement whose substantive party was the now-bankrupt Lehman Brothers. The cover of the Pricing Document prominently stated that the issue was credit-linked to six financial institutions, namely Barclays Bank, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, UBS and UOB - these banks being defined as Reference Entities or REs. Much was made of the fact that the viability of the notes depended on whether these six banks or REs would go bankrupt and there are repeated warnings to this effect throughout the document. Investors were given plenty of information on the credit ratings of these six REs and links to their websites while Lehman is listed only as the Arranger in small print. The fine print at the bottom of the cover, however, states that Lehman is also Swap Counterparty, besides being the arranger. Not many retail investors would have seen this, and if they had, few would probably have understood the importance of this information. More on this later. Investors, however, were urged to read the Base Prospectus in conjunction with the Pricing Statement. In the former's page 24, it is stated that 'the Notes are intended to provide investors with a coupon for assuming exposure to the credit risks of companies or of sovereign states, that is, the Reference Entities'. 'By acquiring the Notes, investors can gain exposure to the credit risks of the REs without directly holding debt obligations of the REs, for example, bonds issued by the REs.' Note that the language used creates the impression that gaining exposure to the credit risks of the six REs is something desirable - and, by extension, this suggests that the notes are good investments - when in reality, the key to the whole issue is in the words 'without directly holding debt obligations' of the REs. In other words, the six REs are not participants in the notes, receive no money from the issue and are not issuers of the notes. Instead, the next sentence reveals all: 'This (exposure) is achieved by linking payment of the principal and/or interest on the Notes to an RE's default.' Who provides this link? In all the documents, this is given as Minibond Ltd but this is a special purpose vehicle with only US$1,000 in capital. The substantive party behind Minibond Ltd is most likely Lehman Brothers. Here's how it works. Lehman most probably owned securities in the six REs. In order to hedge itself against a default by any of these REs, it set up Minibond to offer notes to the public. Minibond offered these notes with attractive terms and because of clever marketing and pricing, collects a certain amount of cash from retail investors. This money is then used to buy securities - in the case of Series 3, it was collateralised debt obligations (CDOs), most probably on US mortgage instruments. Minibond then collects the cash flows from these CDOs. In order to pay investors the quarterly coupon and to ensure no problems with currency/interest rate fluctuations, it swaps these cash flows with a counterparty, which is Lehman. It is stated elsewhere that if the swap deals fail in addition to an RE default, the whole issue will be terminated. Thus, since Lehman has failed, so has the issue. The crux of the entire deal appears on page 17 under Credit Default Swap where it is stated that Minibond has an agreement with Lehman in which Lehman pays Minibond a premium for insuring Lehman against credit losses on the REs. In effect, the money that Singapore retail investors exchanged for the notes were not for any bonds issued by the six names that appeared on the cover of the prospectus but instead, went towards insuring Lehman against losses in its portfolio. The quarterly coupon investors received was not interest from the six REs but instead, Lehman paying an insurance premium, partly financed by cash obtained from CDOs. In short, Lehman structured a synthetic derivative product to hedge its own exposure to various instruments and linked it to the default likelihood of six major banks. Should the true nature of the instrument have been disclosed upfront? Yes, especially since it was marketed to retail investors - though it has to be said that many other notes and products have been sold in a similar manner and the only reason that the poor disclosure of this particular series of notes surfaced is that Lehman went bust. Had it not, or had it been rescued, the coupon payments would have continued as per normal and no one would have been the wiser. Moreover, while it is possible to piece together the actual substance of these notes from the documents available, it is a tedious process and arguably not within the ability of the average retail investor. There are many issues also unresolved - for one thing, how many other similar products are out there? How could the authorities allow the conflicts of interest inherent in one party from being the arranger, issuer and swap counterparty? How is it that, if Lehman alone performed all these functions, there was virtually no disclosure of Lehman's financial position or credit rating? Instead, investors' attention was focused on the six REs - wrongly, as it turned out. Finally, if disclosure was weak, then so was knowledge among distributors. Some brokers did not understand the true nature of the instrument and sold it as a bond. Maybe the name had something to do with it, though as investors have now found out painfully, what they had bought was not a bond but a convoluted swap-based instrument. Thus, should such products be allowed to continue to come into the retail market?

Using the following assumption, Taiwan living standard is about the same with spore.... Their petrol today price is 98 - S$1.2045 95 - S$1.1318 92 - S$1.1 After adding our govt gas tax of + 0.40 / L assumption... It seems it should be priced at 98 - S$1.6045 95 - S$1.5318 92 - S$1.50.... By looking what is offered here...what's your view ? should this be justified ? bearing in mind we have all the oil refinaries nearby our island. Today published , Spore Gas prices after discount 98 - S$ 1.824 95 - S$ 1.754 92 - $$ 1.722 for taiwan petrol retail price check it here.. http://gas.sobi.tw/

I don't understand....the recent COE quota cut was only occured in September08, so how can they say "a sharp drop in car sales weighed on overall performance" for the August sales figure. In another paragraph, the article compares the lower car sales figures to the same month in 2007. But I thought the COE quota cut in April this year was not so much to warrant a "plunge of 20.4%" in July. S'pore Aug retail sales up Wed, Oct 15, 2008 Reuters SINGAPORE'S retail sales rose in August, up a seasonally adjusted 0.9 per cent from July, though a sharp drop in car sales weighed on overall performance, data showed on Wednesday. The rise in August after adjusting for seasonal patterns comes after retail sales were unchanged in July compared to the previous month. From a year ago, the August index rose 4.2 per cent, lower than the 11.8 percent rise in July. Economists had forecast August's retail sales to slow as weaker economic growth and a softening labour market weigh on consumer spending. Excluding motor vehicle sales, the August index was 3.8 per cent higher after adjustment for seasonal patterns, following a 2.4 per cent rise in July, the Department of Statistics said. Retail-sale volumes were unchanged from a year earlier after removing the effect of higher prices. Adjusted for seasonal factors, sales in August rose 0.9 per cent from July. Vehicle sales in August fell 12.9 per cent from the same month in 2007. From July, auto sales plunged 20.4 per cent, without adjusting for seasonal factors. Purchases of recreational goods declined 6.8 per cent in August from a year earlier, and fell 3.6 per cent from July. -- REUTERS

Channel NewsAsia - Monday, August 11 http://sg.news.yahoo.com/cna/20080810/tap-...lf-231650b.html SINGAPORE: It has been slightly more than a month since evening Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) charges were imposed on vehicles driving into the area around the Singapore River. ADVERTISEMENT While traffic speeds have gone up, businesses in nearby Chinatown have suffered since the ERP kicked in on July 7. In a recent survey by the Chinatown Business Association, some shopping centres reported their sales fell by up to 50 per cent. Tourist landmarks such as the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and the Chinatown Heritage Centre and even good hawker fare could not lure the crowds back. For example, popular Maxwell Food Centre has seen a 40 per cent decline in business. The Chinatown Business Association had expected customers to react in the short

Mon Dec 10, 2007 8:22am EST By Claire Sibonney TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's largest outdoor-goods chain has pulled water bottles and food containers made of polycarbonate plastic from its shelves over worries about the chemical bisphenol A, which has been linked to cancer and reproductive problems in animals. Vancouver-based Mountain Equipment Co-op became the first major Canadian retailer to stop selling products that contain bisphenol A over fears the chemical can leach from plastic food and water containers. "Inconclusive science and regulatory uncertainty presently surrounds bisphenol-A (BPA)," the company said in a statement. "For these reasons, MEC has stopped selling polycarbonate water bottles and food containers until guidance is provided by the Government of Canada on the health risks posed by BPA." The Canadian co-operative joins U.S.-based Patagonia in dropping the products because of health concerns. The chemical, which can mimic the effects of the hormone estrogen in cells, has been surrounded by controversy. Some North American researchers and environmentalists have shown it can cause several types of cancer as well as developmental, neural, behavioral and reproductive harm in animals. Industry says the products are not dangerous, citing studies from government agencies such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that food and beverage containers manufactured from polycarbonate do not pose a health risk to humans. "Rarely has a chemical been the subject of such intense scientific testing and scrutiny, and still, important agencies across the globe agree that there is no danger posed to humans from polycarbonate bottles," said Tom Cummins, spokesman for Nalgene and Nunc Brand Products, which manufacturers the popular Nalgene polycarbonate water bottles. Besides hard-plastic water bottles, bisphenol A is also used in some baby bottles and the linings of some food cans, including most major brands of infant formula, according to a study co-released this week by Environmental Defence Canada and the Washington-based Environmental Working Group. "We have study after study showing that this chemical is toxic,... and there are safe and available alternatives that are affordable," said Aaron Freeman, policy director of Environmental Defence Canada. Canada's health department declined to comment before it releases preliminary results of a review of the chemical's effects next spring. "We are looking at as much research as we can to make a very science-based assessment," said Joey Rathwell, a spokeswoman for Health Canada. Norway and the European Union are also reviewing the product. Japanese manufacturers decided voluntarily to stop making products using polycarbonate plastic five to six years ago. (Reporting by Claire Sibonney; editing by Janet Guttsman)

Hi all, I'm a bit puzzled how come car sales down even with all the COE fully taken up??? with many unsuccessful bidders at that! Duh.......................... R the figures only for new cars? or incl resale cars?