The Great Singapore Shopathon is on

MANILA, Philippines - Hear ye, all you shopaholics! Aside from shopping, can you think of more reasons to drop everything you’re doing now and book a flight pronto to Singapore? How about the Great Singapore Sale? Surely, for shopaholics, the word “sale” is enough to send the pulse racing and the senses reeling. Toss in the word “great” and you’re guaranteed a shopathon like no other. Imagine an eight-week sale (running from May 27 to July 24) with humongous discounts up to 70 percent on the most coveted signature items — clothes, jewelry, bags, gadgets, toys, or just about everything — everywhere, from the central shopping belt of Orchard Road and Marina Bay to the southern waterfront and suburbs. Imagine the mother of all sales in the mother of all shopping havens that is Singapore!

Singapore’s store shelves are brimming with amazing bargains and shelf-control is not one of my virtues so one balmy Sunday, I hop on a plane for Singapore, check into the Fairmont Hotel on Bras Basah Road, put on my most comfortable shoes, and plunge headlong into shopping. Of course, you can always charge it to experience — or better yet, charge it to the almighty plastic, preferably MasterCard, the official card of the Great Singapore Sale for the past eight years now.

Now in its 18th year, the Great Singapore Sale (GSS) 2011 is organized by the Singapore Retailers Association in partnership with MasterCard, Singapore Press Holdings, Baywatch Association, and Singapore Tourism Board. A roaring hit with visitors to the Lion City, last year’s GSS snagged 21 percent of Singapore’s total tourism receipts worth S$18.8 billion, recording a 17-percent year-on-year increase.

Deals And Steals

Without losing my shelf-esteem, I gingerly comb the stores, lured by the assorted deals and steals that seem to speak to me, “Buy me, buy me!”

I keep my eyes peeled for the must-have items on my wish/bucket list. I discover that there’s more to the Great Singapore Sale than meets the eye. For instance, would you believe that buying something off the stylish racks of BCBGMAXAZRIA, Karen Millen, Topshop, Topman, Dorothy Perkins, Miss Selfridge, Maxstudio.com, Wallis, Ben Sherman could get you a chance to win a trip to scintillating New York City when you charge your purchase to MasterCard?

If it’s about time you got yourself a new watch, by all means, get a stunning new timepiece from Cosmopolitan, Katherine Hamnett or Kenneth Cole and be rewarded with a S$30 voucher on your next purchase.

Other dazzling discounts up to 60 percent await MasterCard cardholders at Dickson Watch & Jewellery, All Watches, Indo+Suisse, Chow Tai Fook, Lukfook Jewellery, On Cheong Jewellery, RISIS, and Sette.

Suit yourself and dress to impress. Get the complete executive look at T.M. Lewin that offers 10-percent off regular-priced items, and shop for some ties now at 40-percent off at CYC The Custom Shop — truly to tie for!

Say hello to the Nokia E7, now at S$120 off. And hear this: Get a free Nokia Mini Speaker worth $88 when you purchase a Nokia C6-01, C7 or N8. Or grab some Nokia accessories at 10-percent off. Or how about upgrading your gadgets with a funky new look at Nubox, now offering a 15-percent discount on its accessories?

To sweeten the deal even more, MasterCard lets you savor delightful savings and perks at its partner restaurants as well as spas (after all that shopping, a soothing massage should ease tired muscles and frazzled nerves) and hotels. With MasterCard, you can also enjoy a whole world of excitement and discounts at Resorts World Sentosa with its array of entertainment, shopping, and fine-dining options.

Grand Slam Of Shopping

On your Marc, get set: Marc Jacobs is all dressed up for the Great Singapore Sale.

“This is like the grand slam of shopping,” declares Ai June Schult, senior business leader and marketing head, South East and South Asia, MasterCard Worldwide. “All the cities that people go to for shopping are now together in a circuit, so we call this campaign the MasterCard shopathon. It kicked off in Singapore and then goes to Malaysia and Jakarta. We’re trying to tie up with Thailand as well. The idea is all the key cities have something very different to offer and you can actually hop from one city to another and partake in all the sale offerings and the different things that they have. Like in Singapore, you have a variety of big brand names and luxury shopping. When you go to Bangkok, you have a more creative type of independent labels and offerings. We create a shopping circuit and we have cardholder offers to enhance the shopping experience when you travel around from one sale to another. We don’t want to have it all in one go so you can spread out your shopping across the region across the rest of the year, from May all the way to December.”

Shopping gets even more exciting with MasterCard’s breathtaking offers. “For example, you spend more than S$12,000 over the period of the sale, you can redeem like a Nikon SLR camera. We’ve also put up a Prada handbag for redemption. Throughout the week, we have different things — something for the girls, something for the guys. You can wait and collect your receipts for the bigger prize. The unique thing is, when you go to Malaysia, it doesn’t stop. When the sale stops, your rewards don’t stop; when you go to Malaysia and shop, you can accumulate the receipts as well. That’s why it’s called the grand slam of shopping with MasterCard. The rewards will run from May to the end of December.”

Call a spade Kate: It’s raining umbrellas, lanterns, and discounts at Kate Spade.

The discounts never stop, too. “In addition to everything you see going on, we also tied up with certain retailers so that, say for this limited period or for two hours only in this particular store, there’s an additional x-percent off or you get an additional benefit of some sort when you get to the counter,” Ai June elaborates.

Flash Report

This year, MasterCard is also introducing its flash sales — a series of limited online deals where cardholders get to enjoy fantastic deals on a whole range of items, from designer handbags to digital gadgets throughout the GSS sale period. To take part in these great sales, simply register on the MasterCard Shopathon website.

    Ai June notes, “This year, we’ve gone quite big on the whole digital area and we’ve launched a website, like a shopping companion in your pocket. For example, you can’t bring all your entourage of girlfriends when you shop so you go on your own free time. Let’s say you get into a store and you can’t decide whether you want the red dress or the blue dress. Of course, you have a budget and you can’t buy both. What you can do is take a photo of Dress A and Dress B. You sign in to your Facebook and there’s a poll that will be created: ‘Okay, guys, I have a date. What will I wear? This one or this one?’ It’s an interesting thing we have brought to the table to make the whole shopping experience a bit more fun and exciting for friends. Or when you have a group of friends and you’re the one tasked to buy a birthday present for someone. They’re giving you a budget; it’s a big responsibility. So you go to the store and again let your friends vote. We call it social shopping. Or you can record your purchases and your friend can go and look at your profile — either what you have bought or what you wished you had bought, like a wish list. Your friend will say, ‘Okay, I’m generous, I’ll buy it for you.’ It makes the whole shopping experience a bit more interactive.”

Reebonz & Thrills

 Amid the growing e-commerce trend, MasterCard Worldwide and Reebonz have forged an agreement that will provide MasterCard cardholders with a new suite of luxury retail and lifestyle offerings at their fingertips.

 Reebonz is an online luxury retailer that provides a wide array of sale avenues, including an online shopping portal, mobile app for the iPhone and iPad, and exclusive offline channels such as a retail lounge, private events, and catalogue shopping. Under the two-year agreement effective May 2011, MasterCard cardholders from the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesida, Thailand, Vietnam, and India get to enjoy perks like exclusive Reebonz discounts, privileged sale previews, and access to private sale events.

“As the privileged official card, MasterCard gets extra discounts on the already discounted luxury items,” Ai June whets our shopping appetites more. “Check out the website reebonz — there are luxury handbags, travel, hotel, home products, etc. The brands they sell are like a whole range of Miu Mius, Pradas, etc. For Chanel and Hermes, they do vintage. They check the condition of the item before they post it so it’s pretty reliable; it’s a pretty good place to get your luxury handbags.”

 Now, this is retail therapy at its best!