Online Fashion Retailing and Retail Geography: The Blogshop Phenomenon in Singapore

摘要

This paper examines why blogshops exist in Singapore and how these unconventional online retailing channels can be extended to bricks and mortar shops. The rise of blogshops is due to a combination of low barriers to entry and the informal institutions that bind the blogshop community for mutual support, and the development of a self-regulatory regime. Blogshops are spatially embedded and supported by the contextualised network of economic actors which facilitate the open exchange of practices and ideas through information diffusion across both virtual and physical space. The overlap between virtual and physical space is further illustrated by businesses extending their virtual space to bricks and mortar shops, which in turn supports their sustainability by widening their market penetration. Therefore, blogshops not only reverse the development path from conventional to online retailer, but also illustrate the importance of physical space for the accumulation and transfer of tacit knowledge.