Robinsons Department Stores Online

Robinsons Department Stores Online Pte Ltd (formerly known as Robinsons & Co. Pte Ltd) is an online retail company based in Singapore. The company owned Robinsons department stores in Singapore and Malaysia and it was one of Singapore's most renowned department stores before its physical closure in 2021. It also operated the largest department store in the Middle East at the Dubai Festival City before its closure in 2021.

Robinsons Singapore was a member of the International Association of Department Stores from 1997 to 2012.

Robinsons Department Stores Online Pte Ltd is currently part of the Australia-based wholesale supplier Canningvale Australia.

History[]

Spicer & Robinson was established on 25 February 1858 by Philip Robinson formerly from the west of England and a brother of Elisha Smith Robinson^[1] and his business partner James Gaborian Spicer, who was a former keeper of the Singapore jail, and a partner in the shipwright business, it was located at Commercial Square. However, less than two years after the partnership, on 5 October 1859, James Spicer pulled out from the partnership and thus the company was known as Robinson & Co.. Robinson found a new partner, George Rappa Jr.. At that point of time, Commercial Square was renamed Raffles Place. Robinson & Co. moved to the corner of North Bridge Road and Coleman Street.

Robinson developed his business a different way. He employed travelling representatives to canvass the Malay Archipelago and Borneo. Many of the Malay Rulers were among his customers, as well as Mongkut, the King of Siam.

Near the end of 1864, there was a financial crisis, firms crashed and hundreds of shops closed down. Robinson managed to survive during this period of time. A new shop was opened at Battery Road, and the company's first assistant was appointed from England, T. C. Loveridge, which took charge of a newly opened tailoring department. Loveridge took lessons in Singapore from an experienced cutter and first tried out his skill by cutting out a frockcoat for a colleague. It fitted well and the latter became a partner in the business. Robinson offered to sell out for £1,000 (which was a huge sum of money then), but Loveridge rejected the offer.

1881 was when Robinson died. His son, Stamford Raffles Robinson took over the business. In 1886, he employed A. W. Bean as assistant, eight years later making him his partner. The 1890s saw the company doing more business than ever before in the Malayan states (now Malaysia). The company launched a large advertising campaign in the Malay Mail and increase the number of travelling representatives. In 1891 the company moved to a bigger shop in Raffles Place.

Robinsons also stocked musical instruments in the early 1900s as most homes had a piano, gramophone among many. Robinson & Co. became a limited company in 1920, when Robinson and Bean were still partners. The carefree days of Singapore and the then Malaya were gone when the Great Depression came. The company's main store in Kuala Lumpur, which was located next to the Whiteaway Laidlaw department store, the present-day site of the Malaysian head office for OCBC Bank by the Masjid Jamek LRT station on Jalan Tun Perak,^[2] opened in 1928 just before the start of the Depression. For many years the company operated at a loss until 1936 when it made a profit.^[3] Stamford Robinson died in 1935 at 83 in Edinburgh, Scotland.

The company moved to a newer and bigger store at Raffles Chambers in November 1941. The building was air-conditioned at the café, men and women hairdressing salons. The Japanese bombed the building on December 8, 1941, but business opened as usual the next day. It suffered damage when it was attacked again on 13 February 1942. The last days of the British fell to the Japanese, saw only one person running the cafe. Allied troops fighting in Malaya were unable to find supplies, and the Manager of the Kuala Lumpur branch could get camp beds for them.

Both stores were looted in the final days of the war. However, the company's $5,000 worth of silver and other valuables could not be retrieved. Even the best locksmiths or oxy-acetylene torches could not open the room.

The Raffles Place store was used as the headquarters of NAAFI and Ensa, the Services' entertainment organisation when the British returned to Singapore in 1945. Robinsons reopened in April 1946, business flourished and earned a profit of $1 million, the first time in history.

John Little's Marina Square store.

Robinsons acquired a 76% stake on John Little and the whole company in the end of 1955. The Raffles Place store was fully air-conditioned by then and was the first in the region. Robinsons got the franchise for Marks and Spencer for Singapore in 1958. On 21 November 1972, the Raffles Place outlet caught fire.^[4] As a result, the building was reduced to rubble. Nine people died in the blaze. The store moved to Specialists' Shopping Centre on Orchard Road.

Robinsons at Centrepoint, Orchard Road during Christmas 2004.

Robinsons moved again to Centrepoint in June 1983 with 130,000 sq ft spread over five floors. The store went through a refurbishment in 2001 with a brand new look. It opened another store at Raffles City that same year in March. The Raffles City store used to be a Sogo outlet but closed down shortly after it filed bankruptcy.

In 2003, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation and Great Eastern was planning to sell away their joint stake in the company to remove its non-core assets. A few companies had plans to buy the group. In the end, OCBC and Great Eastern did not sell the 37% stake away. The company used to house their headquarters on the fifth floor of Centrepoint in the department store but has since moved to Orchard Building for more retail space under the lead new CEO.

Meanwhile, probably as a result of the 1973 crisis, the Kuala Lumpur branch on Jalan Tun Perak (Masjid Jamek) also closed around 1975.^[3] The building was acquired by United Asian Bank in 1976, and it was demolished to make way for the bank's headquarters (now called Menara UAB).^[5] The store however made a comeback in Kuala Lumpur in 2007 after a thirty-two year absence when its new store opened at The Gardens, Mid Valley City. A second store is opened at Four Seasons Place (next to the Petronas Towers), thus marking Robinsons' return to Kuala Lumpur's central business district since its Masjid Jamek store closed in 1975.^[6][7]

Sale to Lippo Group[]

In 2006, OCBC sold its 29.9% stake in the group to Indonesia's Lippo Group (under Auric Pacific Singapore) for S$203 million as they could not own more than 5% in non-core assets.^[8] In October 2006, there was a controversial board meeting, with new owner Lippo booting out long serving chairman Michael Wong Pakshong. Another board member, Chew Gek Khim, who narrowly retained her seat in the board, resigned on 30 October 2006, after serving the board for 18 years. Chew was the chairman of its remuneration and nominating committees of the corporation. She is the granddaughter of the late Tan Sri Dr. Tan Chin Tuan, the latter invested in the company when he was at OCBC. Days later, the two remaining independent directors resigned from the company's board. They are Cham Tao Soon and Winston Tan. Stephen Riady told the media that he was interviewing candidates for new independent directors back in September. Stephen has been a board director of the company since Auric Pacific acquired the company. The fallout at the AGM has questioned several retail investors questioning the manner of how OCBC sold its stake in April 2006.^[9]

Sale to Al-Futtaim Group[]

In April 2008, the Al Futtaim Group bought 88% of the shares of Robinsons & Co. at S$7.20 per share.^[10][11]

Under the new owners, the chain tried to go upmarket, opening a 20,800 square feet concept store at The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands in September 2011. It was not successful, however, and closed just two years later in May 2013, with Mr Kraatz saying that the space was insufficient as "customers expect a full-fledged department store which sells everything when they step into Robinsons".^[12] In June 2013, the store opened its first suburban branch with four floors of retail space at nearly 85,000 square feet, at Jem in Jurong East^[13] and in November 2013, the Centrepoint flagship store closed when the lease expired. It moved to its current location in the Heeren, with an even bigger space of 186,000 sq ft spread over six floors of retail space.

In 2016, Robinsons & Co launched its first e-commerce website alongside the Autumn Winter 2016 Campaign and shut down its final John Little store in Singapore.

In 2017, Robinsons expands to Middle East, by opening a three-level store at Dubai Festival City in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.^[14][15]

In 2018, a three-level store at Kingdom Centre in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, was opened.^[16][17]

Closure of physical stores[]

Robinsons exited Singapore and Malaysia in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In August that year, Robinsons announced the closure of its Jurong East Mall outlet,^[18] followed by their main outlets at The Heeren and Raffles City on 30 October, ending its 162-year history and joining the list of closures in the city-state, such as Topshop, Hotwind and Esprit Holdings.

The store had been put under a creditors' voluntary winding-up; affected staff were either redeployed to other stores within the Al-Futtaim Group or offered reemployment assistance.^[19]

Robinsons also shuttered its only two stores at KLCC and Mid Valley City,^[20] both in Kuala Lumpur, in November and December 2020, ending its near-century presence in Malaysia (1928 - 2020).^[21] The former store space in Mid Valley City has since been replaced by a pop-up Isetan store.^[22]

Robinsons The Heeren was closed on 16 December 2020, and the Marks & Spencer Raffles City outlet was closed on 31 December 2020 as the lease was under Robinsons.^[23] The Raffles City outlet closed on 9 January 2021 with all stocks sold.^[24][25]

The brand however lived on in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, with an outlet at Dubai Festival City mall before its imminent closure on 28 March 2021.^[26][27][28]

Reopening[]

On 10 June 2021, Robinsons announced its return as an online store, Robinsons Online, following its acquisition by wholesale supplier Canningvale Australia.

Mr Jordan Prainito, the former managing director of Canningvale Australia joined Robinsons as its Managing Director to bring the learnings from Canningvale's digital transformation into Robinsons.

On 24 June 2021, Robinsons online shopping website went live.^[29]

References[]

External link[]

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