Earlier last week, two major news caught our attention: the news of how Groupon is facing a growing list of grouses, and the closure of Rakuten’s Singapore Marketplace.
According to a report on Straits Times, Singapore based customers of Groupon has been complaining about bad customer service, goods not delivered, fake luxury items as well as merchants that have closed down. Here’s a look at some of the complaints from Groupon Singapore’s Facebook page, all of which were just over the past few days:
To be fair to Groupon, the team has been responding to most complaints and trying to address the root of the problem. However, it seems as though the team has been facing problem with ensuring the quality of the deals they listed on their platform.
Other than Groupon, Rakuten, another ecommerce site in Singapore, has also shared that they are shutting down their Rakuten Marketplace in Singapore, as well as laying off 150 staffs from the company. Rakuten would no longer process new purchases from March onwards, two years after it began operations in Singapore since January 2014.
Here’s the announcement by the company:
With the economy downturn coming (perhaps it’s here already), looks like Rakuten is the first one to be taking cost cutting measures in Singapore.
Groupon and Rakuten aside, other e commerce sites seems to be operating well though.
Take Reebonz for example, it recently expanded its physical presence in Singapore by setting up its first storefront in Suntec City:
