![]() Takings at its first store amounted to about S$3,000 daily when Sheng Siong started in 1985. By 2004, only one of the competing provision stores near its Ang Mo Kio outlet remained. 6 Sheng Siong faced stiff competition as there were five other provision stores within walking distance of it, but the store focused on providing a wide range of no-frills products and increased sales volumes by accepting lower profit margins. 5 Assisted by Savewell employee Lim Gek Heng, Lim ran the first Sheng Siong store with his two brothers, six sisters and four workers. 4 Despite having no experience in running a provision store, Lim borrowed S$30,000 from his father and bought the 1,650-square foot Savewell outlet in Ang Mo Kio for S$20,000 from its owner, Aw Chwee Seng. ![]() The Savewell chain of stores ran into financial trouble the following year, and its outlets were put up for sale. He set up a pork counter at the Savewell Supermarket and paid the store’s owner 20 percent of sales revenue as rental. 2 In 1984, when the farm was stuck with an excess of unsold meat, Lim saw an opportunity when he visited a provision store in Ang Mo Kio that did not sell pork. 1 The farm, which reared 3,000 pigs at its peak, had to close when the government started phasing out Singapore’s pig-farming sector in the early 1980s. The founder of the Sheng Siong chain, Lim Hock Chee, first worked on his family’s pig farm, Cheng Siong Pig Farm. In 2008, it achieved more than S$600 million in sales and was ranked the third-largest retailer in Singapore by sales volume in a survey. Sheng Siong is a Singapore supermarket chain that started out in 1985 as a family-owned provision store.
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