Commenting on Marina Square’s future redevelopment, SMU Associate Professor of Marketing (Education) Seshan Ramaswami called the redevelopment “another little chipping off of the traditional bricks-and-mortar shopping model”, which was based on large malls, department stores as anchor tenants and a huge array of specialty stores. Assoc Prof Ramaswami likened modern retailing to a real estate business where a developer would build what would generate the greatest value in returns over the long term. He said all physical retail is facing very powerful competition from e-commerce outlets across the world, and then, in Singapore, there is also the proliferation of physical malls built up over the last decades, noting that every town in Singapore had its own mall with similar offerings
