Shopping in Singapore City

Overview

In a city teeming with cash-rich tourists, medical tourism travelers, and upwardly mobile young professionals with plenty of loose change to spare, shopping is not just a past time; it’s a well practiced art.  Whether you’re sashaying through swishy couture houses or trying to drown out the shopkeeper in Arab Street with your high pitched bargaining, you’re shopping in a city that’s gone out of its way to make life easy for the consummate shopper.  Convenient underground walkways run along the length of Orchard road, Singapore’s answer to the Champs Elysee, and medical tourism vacationers can look forward to a percentage off their Goods and Services Tax if they frequent Premier Tax Free Logo stores. 

Major Districts

Most shopping in Singapore begins with Orchard Road, although it doesn’t necessarily end there.  Said to have the world’s largest concentration of malls, this glittering stretch of consumer nirvana is dotted with exclusive boutiques, electronics stores, and cheap export reject shops. Prices are not always as low as the medical tourism traveler might expect them to be, but that doesn’t make the Orchard Road experience any less addictive.  Shop, eat, stroll, and just drink in the sea of cultures and languages – Chinese, Malay, Indian, and Thai. Think Times Square without the pimps.   

Once you’re done with the ritzy malls, head to the smaller but equally vibrant communities near Little India and Arab Street where retail therapy takes on a decidedly local flavor.  The lanes of Arab Street are lined with shops stocking yards and yards of luxurious fabrics, antiques, teak furniture, and Middle Eastern art.  Little India offers the medical tourism vacationer comparable bargain buys – spices, silks, brass and bronze artifacts, glass bangles, and a range of Indian house ware.  Sadly, much of Chinatown’s retail attractions moved to the malls when these invaded the cityscape, but there’s still some bargain shopping to be had if you take the time to stroll around.