Personal Touch

While some retail brands may be scaling down in this economy, home-grown womenswear label Klarra is going bigger.

- Amanda Chai

Its newly revamped Raffles City Shopping Centre store, relocated from a different unit on the same floor, opened in end-July. At 2,152 sq ft, it is Klarra's largest since the digitally native label ventured into physical retail in 2018 in the same mall.

Founder Beatrice Tan had longed to incorporate a cafe concept for some time. When the lease for the original Raffles City store was coming to an end, "it felt like the right moment to bring this vision to life", she says.

The new unit offered by the mall, more than double in size, fit the bill and Ms Tan signed the lease in end-2024 for a three-year term.

Experiential retail, it seems, is not dead.

The retail climate has been gloomy, though it is cautiously improving. New data from the Department of Statistics showed that retail sales in Singapore rose by 2.3 per cent year on year in June, up from a downwardly revised 1.3 per cent increase in the previous month.

Within this, sales of apparel and footwear fell by 2.6 per cent - already an improvement from the negative growth of 5.3 per cent the month before.

Despite the volatility, several mostly online-only local brands have pushed through with shiny new physical stores in the past month, with some sinking six-figure sums into renovations - cementing a commitment to woo shoppers who still want that tactile experience.

No stranger to investing in the store experience, over the pandemic, Ms Tan opened a year-long pop-up store at The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands (December 2020), then a second store in Ion Orchard (October 2021).

Despite initial challenges, the stores were very well received by customers, she says.

"It validated our belief that despite the growth in our online business, having a physical place to connect with our customers greatly strengthens our brand."