By Jessica Lim

THE downturn has made bargain-hunters out of shoppers, who have hit pay dirt in shops selling cut-price items.

The booming business in such shops, which hawk anything from groceries to batteries to plastic household items, is fuelling expansion plans among bargain-store chains.

They include the 24-year-old Sheng Siong and the supermarkets under the MCP banner, a relatively new kid on the block with six outlets and two more to come this year.

A Straits Times check found other store chains with plans for growth.

Within the next three months, ABC Bargain Centre plans to open three more outlets in Hougang, Tampines and Jurong, adding to its string of 53 branches. By this time next year, it aims to have another seven stores open.

The 22-outlet Sheng Siong and the 82-outlet FairPrice supermarket chains will each also open three new stores in heartland locations this year.

New branches aside, Sheng Siong is also opening a $60 million warehouse and office facility in Mandai Link.

MCP Supermarket chain owner Raymond Tan, 46, put the strong growth prospects down to a combination of lower rent and the demand for cheaper goods in the current economic gloom.'We have an advantage now and we must take it. Our costs, like rent, are going down, and demand for our cheaper products is high. It is a good time,' he said.

So how good has business been?

Sales revenue at MCP Supermarket has jumped 50 per cent, from $20 million in 2007 to $30 million last year.

Sheng Siong logged an 11 per cent climb in sales revenue in the same period, from $600 million to $667 million.

ABC Bargain Centre said its revenue crept up 5 per cent, but it declined to reveal exact figures.

Its owner, Mr Naraindas Gangaram, 47, said he now counts tie-wearing corporate-looking types among his customers.

'Everyone wants value for money and people are shopping at stores they didn't before,' he said.

Set against the ringing of the cash registers are falling retail rentals. They have been heading south since the last quarter of last year, the first dip since late 2003.

In the prime Orchard area, rents fell 1.9 per cent to an average of $36.10 per sq ft per month in the last three months of last year.

Prime suburban rents dipped more moderately, by 1 per cent to an average of $29 psf per month over the same period - the first contraction in quarterly suburban mall rentals in nearly a decade.

The chain stores are not the only ones doing well. More stand-alone stores are opening too. Over the next year, about 10 iEcon shops - previously known as Econ minimarts - will open, each run by an individual who paid a sum of money to get the franchise.

Already, 100 iEcon stores are in business, said Ms Ana Lei, the assistant general manager at PSC Corporation, which runs the iEcon franchise.

Potential business owners pay PSC Corp $10,000 in return for help in picking out a good store location, setting up the store and receiving contacts for suppliers of goods at discount prices. Rent and the cost of the shop's stocks are borne by the owner.

PSC Corp used to get two inquiries a week on the franchise last year, but it is getting two a day now.

Mr Ong Jit Sang's iEcon shop, a fixture in the Toa Payoh North neighbourhood, has seen business go up 8 per cent in the last four months.

He said: 'We are seeing more new faces every day and business has improved a little. I just hope this will continue.'

This article was first published in The Straits Times.