just a blog

Sunday, June 29, 2008

An article in yesterday's ST forum struck me. I have always been thinking why there has been such a craze over branded and high end products in Singapore. Take a walk down Orchard Road and to events and you will probably be amazed by the amount of such stuff.

Take photography for instance; it never ceases to amaze me the number of dslr users in Singapore. To be more precise, the number new semi-pro to pro dslrs. I understand that for sometime, there had been a shortage in the Nikon D3; a camera that cost a over $6000! Even the new Nikon D300 is hot property and that cost a mere $2200 and above.

When it comes to IT fairs, Singaporeans flock and spend like the items cost no more than a packet of bean sprouts. It never ceases to amaze me how there can be so many IT fairs a year and yet the demand of IT products can be so great. How is it possible that there are claims of record sale for almost every single IT fair.

As the writer correctly pointed out, Singaporeans seem to have a craze for designer bags. Notice that when boutiques such as Prada, LV, Gucci, Chanel, Coach etc are having a sale, there will be a long queue outside them. When inside, Singaporeans will be grabbing the bags like there is no tomorrow. Yes, they like to grab many bags and look at themselves in the mirror, but there are still a fair number of them that still buy at least one piece. No doubt the bags are cheap; but they still cost several hundreds to thousands.

The second hand market for such items are also thriving very well. For cameras, there are people trying to get rid of them even when they have just owned it for less than a month. Is that the result of impulse buy or what, I will never know.

I guess one of the possibilities for this is that Singaporeans, despite all the whining about higher cost of living, are getting richer. According to the Ministry of Manpower, in 2007, the average Singaporean earns $3773 a month. Moreover, with most of the housing loans borne by the Central Provident Fund, it is little wonder that Singaporeans can splurge more on themselves like buying the latest technology, fashion, cars etc.

Another reason for me is that the craze for such material luxuries go hand in hand with the pace of living. Look at Singaporeans, in any weekday, it is not surprising to come across people who have to reach office by 9am and leave only around 7pm; and that is just a very conservative estimate. So if you take into consideration that Singaporeans take around two hours to get to and from work, that would mean that 12 hours of the weekday is spent getting to, from and at work; that is a whooping half a day! We have still not taken into consideration the time taken to prepare to get to work and the possibility of needing to bring some work home to do.

If we are to take all that into consideration, by very conservative estimates, the average Singaporean will have spend around 14 hours every weekday on work. Say he or she just sleeps for six hours, there is just a pathetic four hours of free time. For that four hours, we have not even taken into consideration the time for breakfast and dinner. No wonder Singaporeans have so little time for children.

This brings me back to the point on the supposed materialism. I guess sometimes, it is really one of the few ways for Singaporeans to pamper themselves. After or before a day of hard work, I think it is fairly normal for anyone to want to indulge a little. Yes, a $2 bag from Daiso works just as well as a $2000 bag from LV, but to the user, the satisfaction it brings is immensely different.

he spoke at 10:55 am