CNY Bazaar Space in Chinatown Bid for $15.8k; The Highest in 7 Years

Chinese New Year. Every year, during the festival, thousands of Chinese descend upon the streets of Chinatown, along the Chinatown Festive Street Bazaar.

Throngs of mouth-watering Chinese snacks will be available, from the nostalgic white rabbit candies and candied haw, to love letters and peanut candy.

You’ve probably walked past these stalls many times have you ever wondered how much it would cost to rent a stall to sell Chinese New Year goodies? Five thousand? Six thousand maybe?

Well, on Chinese New Year, people become very generous, giving out red packets, going to casinos to lose money, and spending an insane amount of money for a lucky stall placing.

Lucky Number

One vendor will be paying S$15,800 for a “lucky stall” at the Festive Street Bazaar, the highest bid for a stall in the past seven years.

You can see the video explaining the bid here.

The Chinese, especially the older generation, tend to be rather superstitious and believe that certain things, like lucky stalls, can help with their business.

It is claimed that that particular stall is a hotspot for visitors and tourists and that it sees rather heavy foot traffic around it.

The winner of the bid has been bidding for the stall for the past 20 years, and this is the first time she has succeeded in bidding for it.

Apparently, other people also bid such a crazy high amount, not just the winner. There was a person who had bid nearly 15 thousand dollars for the stall last year.

All in all, there were 41 bids for the 24 stalls that were open for bidding. Although there are in fact more stalls open for business this raucous Chinese New Year, the number of stalls and the number of bids have dropped.

This is because vendors have pooled their resources together to bid for the good spots.

The logic goes like this – Firstly, by pooling their resources together, they are better able to afford a substantial bid.

Secondly, if they collaborate with a person, that person no longer becomes a competitor. With fewer bidders, that lowers the intensity of the bidding process and likely the bidding price for the stall.

Damn, that’s smart. 

So, if you have some free time after your pilgrimage to collect red packets, do head down to the Chinatown Festive Street Bazaar. I think they are going to need quite a bit of business to pay off that 16 thousand dollar bid.