Everything About Sasa’s Sudden Closure in S’pore That Rendered 170 People Jobless

Before Sephora began having a massive presence in Singapore, Sasa was our goto store. At the very least, we’d get beauty products that weren’t found in Sephora at Sasa.

Soon though, the Sephora craze took over and with the existence of the Sephora card, shopping at Sephora suddenly made a lot more sense than buying beauty products elsewhere.

It’s pretty simple: buy makeup products, rack up them points, and buy some more.

And it looks like I’m not the only one who shares this sentiment.

Everything About Sasa’s Sudden Closure in S’pore That Rendered 170 People Jobless

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t see this coming. Sasa, who?

Yeap, every single one of the 22 Sasa International stores in Singapore will be shut down. This was announced on Monday, leaving as many as 170 of its staff in the lurch.

Though the announcement was abrupt and may come as a shock to some of us, the situation hasn’t been rosy for a long while.

Sasa has recorded losses for six consecutive years although it has made various attempts to save themselves.

Six. Years. Now that’s a long time.

Tried To Save Themselves

So what exactly did they try to do to salvage their business?

Sasa revealed in a statement: “In order to improve the performance of the Singapore market, the group had taken measures in recent years to restructure the local management team and to enhance store display and product mix with a view to driving sales.”

Obviously, it didn’t work out.

Now let’s get to numbers shall we?

In six months up till 30 September, its Singapore operations recorded a turnover of S$17.3million, a decline of 4.5% from last year.

Don’t worry though, its 170 employees will be “fully compensated” as per Singapore’s employment regulations.

Sasa Wants To Focus On Other Places

There’s a saying that you shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket. However, they hope to set their sights on Hong Kong and focus their core market there.

But they are aware that the sharp fall in mainland China’s tourist arrivals will make it harder.

Sasa said that to combat the loss in the Singapore market and the not so stellar performance of the Hong Kong market, Sasa has plans to expand in mainland China and to ramp up their e-commerce business.

Sasa is said to still have enough funds to stay afloat.

As of 30 September, they still have HK$788.7 million (~S$137, 659, 278) in terms of cash and bank balances.

To give you a glimpse of just how alright they are, they have a total of 265 stores worldwide, and only 22 of them were in Singapore.

Looks like you might see them when you travel abroad, but just not here on our sunny shores.