Chitchat Supermarkets in trouble. Prelude of what's to come. IKEA Launches Mandarin Oranges

[johnny333]

Re: Supermarkets in trouble. Prelude of what's to come. IKEA Launches Mandarin Orange

Mustaffa is doing very well, not only with the Indian workers, Indian PMETs, Angmo PMETs and also locals. I go there in middle of the night and very surprised whole place crowded. Very tight walking space. Very good place to bulk buy spices. Only bad thing is lack of parking and small roads leading to the building (jam packed with cars at night).

Had a relative who was pick pocketed because it was crowded. That is why I prefer to go there in the afternoons & on week days when it is quieter. Visiting has become easier because of the MRT connection. It is Spore last "Indian store"

In Batam some travel agents are marketing Mustaffa as a tourist site

 

[Hans168]

Re: Supermarkets in trouble. Prelude of what's to come. IKEA Launches Mandarin Orange

Maybe IKEA should launch Swedish Abalones next year!

got white lip abalone meh????

 

[LepZepplin]

Re: Supermarkets in trouble. Prelude of what's to come. IKEA Launches Mandarin Orange

I get my shampoo from iHerb.com They have shampoos, facial cleansers, soaps, ... without harmful chemicals.

http://www.scamadviser.com/check-website/iHerb.com

 

[johnny333]

Re: Supermarkets in trouble. Prelude of what's to come. IKEA Launches Mandarin Orange

http://www.scamadviser.com/check-website/iHerb.com

I've been ordering from iHerb for about 10 years & in all these years iHerb has only messed up 3 orders.

In one order there was a mix up & they sent me a brush set for applying make up instead of hand soap. The value of the brushes was higher than the hand soap. I just kept the brushes & gave the brushes to someone.

The second mix up was when they sent me 2 tubes of moisturizer that I did not order. If you've ordered things from iHerb you'll know that they charge you $ before they send the goods out. So anything extra that is sent out is at their cost & not at the customers expense.

The third problem was when the package was damaged in transit. The damage was detected at the Spore airport & someone from the freight company in Spore gave me a call to inform me of the damage. I never saw the package & iherb refunded the cost of the order

Problems usually arise with orders from Australia, Korea, EEC countries, ... because these countries are very strict on what can or can't be imported. Even in Spore there are certain things that are not allowed. iHerb is good in that they keep a record of banned items & will not sell these items in the countries that ban them.

 

[AsiaDK]

Re: Supermarkets in trouble. Prelude of what's to come. IKEA Launches Mandarin Orange

Mega shops like Mustaffa will survive. They don't have to pay rent, sell everything under the sun, use cheap labor, carry branded goods, ..... They also appeal to the price sensitive. Whenever I want to buy something electrical I will always go to Mustaffa & use the prices there as a baseline of what is a fair price in Spore, & then compare the prices with other places.

Mustafa cuts retail space, closing its Serangoon Plaza store after 30 years. The main store at Mustafa Centre, along Syed Alwi Road, will remain open.
http://www.todayonline.com/business/mustafa-close-serangoon-plaza-store-after-30-years

 

[AsiaDK]

Re: Supermarkets in trouble. Prelude of what's to come. IKEA Launches Mandarin Orange

Stores like Parisilk, Goh Ah Bee, .... will survive. They have small shop fronts, carry no inventory but can get you most of the branded electrical goods.

Yes and they own the premises so they are not affected by rental hikes in recent years. You are right that GAB don't keep much inventory but you can order anything from GAB, tell them the price that someone else is selling and they will uncut the price. This is their business model, machiam like priceline.com version of electronic and electrical goods in their haydays 20-40 years ago.

When the founding grandparents were around, they did not distribute the wealth to younger generation of the family, running it like a family trust fund and gave each family member a regular allowance.

 

[johnny333]

Re: Supermarkets in trouble. Prelude of what's to come. IKEA Launches Mandarin Orange

Mustafa cuts retail space, closing its Serangoon Plaza store after 30 years. The main store at Mustafa Centre, along Syed Alwi Road, will remain open.
http://www.todayonline.com/business/mustafa-close-serangoon-plaza-store-after-30-years

Mustaffa is just one of many tenants in Serangoon Plaza. I doubt that they wanted to give up the space if they had a choice because they are doing well..

It's just another upgrading project by business interests that support the PAP. They closed Funan because they claimed business wasn't good enough. Now they want to demolish a building which already had tenants. I'm not really surprised. It's all about $$$ They started with China town, then went on to Orchard Road. Now it is the turn of Little India.