Sunday, December 28, 2014

Flea / Bazaar Markets in Singapore (updated 28th December 2014)

Fleas are everywhere nowadays, years back flea are not that common but now they are more common than pasa malam (Night Market)! Some weekends there are more than 5 fleas on-going island wide!


The following are fleas that I've experienced in the past few years.
Hope this information here will help you make your choice if you intend to book a flea booth. :)



Sentosa Boardwalk (TGIF Bazaar)
December 2014
Crowd : Some crowd in the afternoon and evening
1 table with table cloth, 1 chair, 1 set of lighting, in a tent.
Many additional items available for rent from organiser if you need.

The weather is really bad these few weeks, for both days that I was there it rained almost immediately once I set up my booth! When it rains, the rain gets into the booth and you need to pay approx $6-$8 per day to rent canvas sheets so that the rain doesn't comes into the booth.

You need to have really awesome deals to grab eyeballs of passerbys too! Entry to Sentosa is free on weekends so there are quite a lot of people entering and exiting Sentosa, these crowd are usually "on a mission" spend time in Sentosa! So you need to have good deals and loud signs to grab their eyeballs if not they will just walk away without taking a look.

Saturday I was at Booth 43 which is really hidden and not very convenient. The travelators are on a sloop which means even if the passing crowd sees your booth they would need to make their way down to check out your items and most people are just too lazy for that.

Sunday I was placed at Booth 29. This spot is so much better and I could easily get crowd to check out my booth as I was clearing items. I just need to stand outside of my booth with a neon sign and many people show interest and walked towards my booth. :D Well at least before it started raining heavily.

Overall it's a great experience there as there are still some crowd (some tourist, some students on holiday and some domestic helpers.) Best items to sell there are those for tourist or people coming to sightsee, enjoy holidays, stuffs for outdoor entertainment etc.






F1 Pit / Pit Building Level 3 (By Good Citizens SG)
December 2014
Crowd : Mostly other Vendors and some crowd in the afternoon.
1 table 2 chairs, air conditioned but still warm.

It's a rather huge scale flea with 210 booths! Booked 2 booths as I was hoping to clear more items. Aircon didn't seem strong enough to cater for so many booths though cause it's still warm. :( It's walking distance from MRT but it seems that not many people know how to come over here or maybe it's the bad weather so crowd was not as good as I hoped it would be. My customers were mostly customer from my instashop and some of the vendors came over to check us out too. I personally went around and got a few items myself too. :P

Not good to walk around in the night time cause the lightings are not that good. During noon time I could see more items but a little crowded so I didn't manage to get much items. I guess too many booths may not be a good thing. :(





Singapore Polytechnic (By For Flea Sake)
November 2014
Crowd : Super crowded as it's in front of lecture theatre and next to canteen.
Sheltered with 1 table and 2 chairs, was informed that it's air conditioned place but it's not.

As all shoppers are students they don't have much spending power but the exposure is good if you have an online shop and have namecards to let them bring back or something. Unique and customisable items are great here cause they are noticed to have the most crowd. :D










Jcube Level 5 (By Blogshop Asia)
September 2014
Crowd : Almost non existence.
Semi Sheltered, 1 table and 1 Chair.
Rules : Usual rules, plus additional rule that items cannot be displayed like "pasa malam" style.

Was promised A3 metal signages to be put up at the entrances, A1 posters displayed at JCube lift lobbies, end up none of these were found. Was informed that there were happening events for the flea, but found out later in the day that all the events were happening at other levels instead of the bazaar location. Really disappointed with the whole event and most vendors request for refund as there was seriously no crowd.

I was lucky to get the booth closest to the escalator. 1 month before the event, I started promoting the flea event, enticing customers to visit with clearance stocks below cost price and lots of freebies. The whole month of promoting the event paid off and thanks to all my customers who dropby if not my stall would probably end up like all the other stalls with zero sales.

Before the September bazaar I booked 2 more events for November and December, the organisers finally decide to cancel the whole event on 2nd October. I recieve the refund a month later, in November.








Bugis Cube Level 1 (By Blogshop Asia)
September 2014
Crowd : Almost non existence.
Sheltered, 1 Table and 1 Chair.
Rules : Usual rules

Was given 1 free booth as compensation so I took it and got another booth for an extra day for $30 (which is my mistake). The building is empty, approximate 7 shops were open on that weekend in the whole mall. Yes I went to walk around the whole mall to check out the place.

Mall is empty and even though it's near a bus stop most of the booths cannot be seen by public at all. In total there were around 9 booths, 4 booths were outside and only 2 opened from afternoon and the other 2 only opened in the evening so it's absolutely not obvious that there is a flea happening! Didn't understand how could the organisers place booths outside but allow the vendors to only open in the evening. Those vendors who were placed inside the mall were there since morning and was practically swatting flies.






Chua Chu Kang Lot 1 (By What The FLEA!)
February 2012
Crowd : Youths and Families
Sheltered corridor facing CCK MRT Station

This Flea was the first flea for Lot 1, instead of tables and chairs they only provide a small area for us and we placed our own cloth on the floor. This is a real flea market as we were allowed to bring second hand and brand new items. I was clearing stock and also brought some items that I don't use for sale. Love it because the crowds were mainly students who just ended their CCAs or remedial lessons, families out for meals or shopping with their kids.

Unfortunately now they only have flea at Level 5, and only preloved items were allowed.






Gek Poh Ville CC
2013
Crowd : Grandparents and some students
Sheltered, 1 huge table and 2 chairs

As there's event so there's lots of people but most of them are there for the event and not really to shop. Items for sale it's better to be more for kids/aunties as there's not many youths there. As it's near to HDB blocks if flyers were given out earlier there should be more customers. :)






Jurong Point Shopping Centre (By For Flea Sake)
November 2013
Crowd : Lots of people (Domestic Helpers, Students, Families)
Sheltered, 1 table and 2 chairs

This is one of the most successful flea I've done and I'm hoping that they will open another one this Christmas so I can clear more stocks! Closing down my shop soon so would really appreciate if they can open another flea these 2 months. Quite a huge scale event and all booths were in a tent. Jurong Point staffs even gave us handheld fans because it was really hot that day. It's near MRT, bus interchange and a mall so the crowd is really good. As it's more accessible I had customers who came down all the way from the east side as well! :) My favourite place for Flea so far!






Bishan Active Park (By fashionbizarre)
June 2010
Crowd : Almost non existence.

My customers were mostly other vendors and customers who received email blast. Weather is really hot and place is not that accessible.






1 comment:

Young Werther said...

That's quite a bit of shopping :)

We have pop-up-stores and council sponsored flea markets here too.