Reason Singaporeans No Longer Love Shopping on Orchard Road

People prefer to shop online and in heartland malls

Why battle ridiculously heavy traffic and crowded trains and elbow your way past hordes of annoying people who can’t stop blocking the escalators when you can buy the exact same things on the internet or in heartland malls?

Once upon a time, shopping in heartland malls meant wearing This Fashion clothes or being limited to the book selection at Popular.

Nowadays, new heartland malls are much more happening. There are stores like Kate Spade Saturday, Calvin Klein Jeans and Armani Exchange at Westgate, while Nex at Serangoon has a rooftop garden with, get this, a dog park, which we have to admit is freaking cool.

Even if you live in Bukit Batok or Yishun, where the neighbourhood malls still suck, you can just buy stuff online. Online shopping is often cheaper than buying stuff in malls since you don’t need to subsidise the high cost of rent, plus you can buy from retailers without Singapore outlets like Target.

You know what’s better than Pedestrian Night on Orchard Road? Not having to deal with not just cars but also other people.

Yvette, a 38-year-old lawyer, concurs. “I buy a large fraction of my things online now, from vitamin supplements to books for my kids. It’s so much more convenient as I don’t need to waste my time travelling to shopping malls. I can even get the merchants to deliver my purchases to my office.”

Don’t even get us started about the increase in parking fares. You’d be hardpressed to find a mall in the main Orchard Road area with a per-entry fee after 6pm. Instead, they’ve been replaced with time-based per entry rates. Thankfully there are still some safe havens for relatively affordable parking, which we’ve compiled here.