Singapore — Remember when that quiz show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? was so very popular on TV?
Retired hawker Chow Meng Cheng, 70 didn’t even have to rack his brain to answer a series of questions to win his million. Well, actually, a Normanton Park one-bedroom condominium unit valued at S$1,000,000.
Lazada, the region’s leading e-commerce platform, announced on Wednesday that Mr Chow had won Singapore’s biggest 11.11 giveaway, which was co-sponsored by the real estate website PropNex.
Mr Chow couldn’t quite believe it, according to Lazada Singapore’s chief marketing officer Wook Kwon. When their team told Mr Chow he was the new owner of this apartment, “just for shopping Lazada’s 11.11 Biggest One Day Sale, he didn’t believe us and thought we were scammers”.
In a press release on Wednesday, Lazada shared a few snippets on their grand winner.
Mr Chow lives in the northwest of Singapore and has been a Lazada customer since 2017. Since the pandemic began, he had shopped more often through the platform, since older folks who are more vulnerable were encouraged to stay home.
He collected the winning golden key while playing the Lazzie Star in-app game, spending only S$3.41 in the process.
Mr Chow also gets a bonus that neither Lazada nor sponsor Propnex had envisioned — a poem penned for him by a stranger who was inspired by his win. More about that later.
Before he retired, Mr Chow had for more than three decades sold fish noodle soup to support his family of five.
It was his daughter who told him about the giveaway and taught him how to play the game to collect golden keys to increase his chances of winning a condo unit.
It never occurred to him that a modest purchase would lead him to such a large prize.
“The good news about winning has not fully sunk in yet! Originally, I thought it was a scam when the Lazada team surprised me with the news. I have never been this lucky in my life! I could only be sure I was really the winner after verifying everything with Lazada’s customer service team,” he said.
Lazada Singapore’s chief executive, Loh Wee Lee said: “We are delighted that this giveaway garnered so much excitement from our shoppers this shopping season, in particular for our biggest one-day sale of the year.”
“Our key focus was to support our sellers through this challenging year, and we are glad to see both our shoppers and sellers rewarded. With this year’s 11.11 achieving record-breaking sales once again, we’re glad to be able to showcase the possibilities that eCommerce brings in changing lives.”
PropNex Realty’s chief exectuve, Ismail Gafoor, says the condominium is extensively landscaped and has an unobstructed of the cove pool and 110 lifestyle facilities on a plot larger than 680,000 square feet that Mr Chow will be able to enjoy in his retirement.
In addition to the big prize, 11 lucky winners who took part in the #LazWinACondo dance challenge were picked to receive $1,111 worth of vouchers.
Jennifer Leong woke up to this happy news and quickly penned this poem which she shared with TISG.
Numero uno
is as special as can be
Let alone the 1
who gets unexpected keys
that opens a condo door
For 1 new unit
1st prize in a lucky draw
of quadruple 1’s
He now soars like the condor
happy, floating on cloud 9
Asked what prompted this early-morning creativity, Ms Leong said: “The story brought a smile to me because he didn’t spend a lot of money buying unnecessary things, he’s part of our heritage hawker culture, he tried to follow the rules to keep safe and stay home by shopping online and is rewarded and… it is a happy story. /TISG
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