SINGAPORE - Home appliance megastore Courts will be opening its second flagship store at The Heeren on Saturday (Nov 6) ahead of schedule to catch the year-end Christmas shopping crowd.
Its latest store at The Heeren, vacated last year by retail stalwart Robinsons, will take up all six floors spanning 189,000 sq ft once fully opened in the first quarter of next year.
Only three floors will be opened on Saturday, showcasing electrical, IT, furniture and bedding products.
In a statement on Wednesday (Nov 3), the company also said it would close its existing Orchard outlet at 228 Orchard Road.
All products and offerings from this outlet will be rehoused at its new Heeren store named Courts Nojima.
Its Tampines megastore will continue to operate, it added.
"With this opening, we hope to share some festive cheer with Singapore shoppers as the year draws to a close, and play our part in bringing back the spirit and vibrancy of Singapore's retail sector," said Mr Hoang Duc Thanh Matthew, Courts Singapore's chief executive officer and Courts Asia chief operating officer.
The new store aims to be a showcase for the latest technologies such as virtual reality and augmented reality (AR), featuring a fully equipped e-sports gaming room capable of hosting e-sports tournaments, among others.
These shopping experiences will be available at the store's opening.
A virtual mascot will also walk customers through the store assisting them with directions and deals. Customers can scan QR code stickers at key areas of the store to interact with the virtual mascot, which will appear as a 3D character on their phone screens through AR technology.
Courts Nojima will be the megastore's largest retail space in Singapore and second flagship store after the Tampines megastore.
It was initially planning to open early next year.
The opening marks Nojima Corporation's first overseas venture into a large-format store concept in a central location of Singapore. The Japanese consumer electronics giant had acquired Courts in 2019.
Strategy professor Lawrence Loh from the National University of Singapore Business School said that the early opening makes good business sense, as the momentum is shaping up for international travel, including visitor arrivals into Singapore.
"As Singapore continues to stabilise and live with Covid-19, Orchard Road is likely to move closer to its heyday come this festive season," added Prof Loh, who called Courts Nojima's opening in The Heeren a "timely injection of zest" into the heart of Orchard Road.
Retailers with bricks-and-mortar outlets, which had already been hit by online shopping, were further battered since the start of the pandemic.
Department store Robinsons announced last year that it would close its last two outlets, with the last store at Raffles City shut on Jan 9. It then reopened as an online store on June 24.
Other retailers that closed include British fashion brand Topshop and its brother brand Topman, which closed its last store at VivoCity in September last year and went online.
Department store operator Isetan Singapore will also be closing its Parkway Parade outlet when its lease expires next March.
Some other retailers, however, have expanded their presence in Singapore owing to consumers' increased demand for home furnishing as more people work and study from home.
An example is furniture store Ikea, which opened a third outlet in Jem in Jurong East in April.
