Sheng Siong Supermarket: It's success is unique

A snag

THERE is a snag in "The story of Sheng Siong's success" (ST, July 27). It cannot be duplicated widely.

Sheng Siong succeeds because of one very important reason -- it is unique. Once you have lots of other businessmen setting up five, 10 or more similar supermarkets in each HDB estate, they will be offering more or less similar prices.

At best, one will have a situation where chilli costs five cents less at one place, a cucumber costs 10 cents less at another. And consumers can eat only so much chilli and cucumbers, no matter how cheap they are.

In the end, only the strongest of the strong will survive. Not only will the small shops be forced out of business, but some of the big corporations will also collapse.

What will happen if the whole economy goes this way? If everything, from clothes to computers, is sold by a handful of gigantic stores offering low prices that others cannot match?

Then Singapore will have a handful of very rich, very successful business owners while many small-business owners will be forced into bankruptcy.

And the people who are made bankrupt will not have any money to spend at the gigantic stores, no matter how cheap their prices may be.

Eventually, the economic system will collapse. The income gap will widen as the rich become super-rich while there is mass unemployment and mass poverty. The social system will collapse as well.

Perhaps this is inevitable. If Sheng Siong does not set up a supermarket, somebody else probably will. But is this desirable?

Do we want an economy where small businesses have absolutely no chance to survive?

We must find another way. Otherwise, the future -- except for the super-rich minority -- is bleak indeed.