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LAST month, Ms Margaret Swatling was sitting in a meeting, having the devil of a time concentrating. The 38-year-old bank worker was certain she had left a tap running before rushing out of the house that morning.
Buying time
AN ARRAY of companies has sprouted up offering to run errands for increasingly time-starved Singaporeans. Here are some of their services and prices.
Service: Buying, wrapping and delivering a birthday gift.
Cost: $30 to $100, not including the price of the gift and wrapping paper.
Service: Picking up or delivering things like passports and birthday cakes.
Cost: $30 to $60 depending on time frame and size of the item.
Service: Grocery shopping
Cost: $40 to $100, not including of the price of the groceries.
Service: Feeding of pets, watering of plants during business trips and holidays
Cost: About $40 per hour
Service: Posting of parcels
Cost: $30 to $50
Service: Day care for children and the elderly
Cost: $40 to $50 per hour
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'I kept seeing images of my parquet floors being ruined by a flood,' she recalled recently.
So, she called her personal concierge, who for $80 went to her house and made sure it was not swamped.
Ms Swatling is among a growing number of Singaporeans turning to do-it-all errand-running services. These companies, often little more than a single go-fer, will do anything from queuing up at post offices to buying birthday presents and visiting neglected grandmothers.
Driven by an increasingly affluent and time-starved population, the industry is booming.
Though there are no reliable data on the number of such businesses, industry insiders say there are about 30 per cent more players now than last year. And a Straits Times check with six existing companies revealed a 10 per cent to 35 per cent increase in business since then.
One of those firms is run by 44-year-old Lawrence Lin, who gave up his job as an accountant to run errands.
For $80 to $120, excluding his taxi-fare, Mr Lin and his team of five part-timers will do almost any chore.
The owner of Enitiate Procurement & Concierge Services, he has fed pets, turned off running taps and delivered salted chicken to a customer with a late-night craving.
'When we first set up two years ago, only ultra-rich people would call. The market is growing now, especially among middle-class professionals with young children,' said the accountant turned butler.
He gets about 50 requests for help daily, mostly from professionals between the ages of 30 and 45. 'People need help for anything under the sun and really value their free time.'
Mr Meswan Joe, 46, ventured into errand-running as an offshoot of his delivery business after he realised that there was a demand for services with a personal touch.
'I started off doing deliveries for companies, then staff would ask me to do things like deliver birthday cakes or even buy a present for their boss,' said Mr Joe, who has seen business increase by 15 per cent over last year.
He charges $25 to $30 depending on the job.
The increased demand for such services is not surprising, said psychotherapist Anthony Yeo.
Singaporeans now spend about 12 hours a day at work and travelling to and from the office. That has led to a jump in the number of people looking for help with stress-related problems, he said.
'With laptops and BlackBerrys, there is no longer a clear boundary between personal life and work. Many professionals now need to be in two places at one time,' he added.
Stockbroker Raymond Tay, 53, engages a butler from Enitiate Procurement & Concierge Services for $100 an hour to do mundane tasks like laundry and cleaning his pond filter.
'My wife and I are both working and we really value the free time we have with our children,' said Mr Tay, who has two daughters and lives in a bungalow in Kembangan.
'Doing these chores do not add anything to our lives.'
This article was first published in The Straits Times on July 21, 2008.
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