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Shopping mall
invades Silchar retail culture
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| OUR CORRESPONDENT TELEGRAPH INDIA | ||
Dec. 17:
It’s a You’ve Got Mail kind of story —
without any of the romance.
The war between
the little Shop Around the Corner and retail
giant Fox Books in
New York that formed the backdrop of
the 1998 Hollywood blockbuster has reached
Silchar almost a decade later and shows no
signs of a romantic resolution.
Huge and glitzy,
with the lure of astronomical discounts — the
shopping mall — that once defined the way
metros shopped, is slowly becoming a fad in
this Cachar headquarters town.
What it does to
consumerism in the context of globalisation is
a question that economists would love to
ponder on at seminars.
But for thousands
of shopkeepers in Silchar, the more pressing
question is whether their little shops around
the corner will be able to put food on the
table for much longer.
When it is a toss
up between buying their daily ware from
crammed, untidy little shacks and surveying a
range of products on well-designed racks, for
the average middle-class consumer in Silchar,
the choice is obvious.
The war does not
end with the difference in logistics and
infrastructure. Price is what is primarily
luring buyers away from the neighbourhood
shops.
Whether it is the
daily grocery or clothes, the malls offer
discounts that are difficult to resist.
After brushing
aside fears of losing loyal customers for a
while, the Central Silchar Traders’
Association has finally decided to fire its
first salvo against a leading departmental
store that has been eating into the profit
margin.
The association,
whose members deal mostly in clothes,
household goods, grocery and toys, has been
resenting the clout of the retail shark.
At a recent
meeting of the association, Ashit Dutta, a
leading businessman in Silchar, said these
small traders do not have the advantage of
dumping a huge stock and then selling the
goods off quickly by pricing them a little
lower than the prevailing market rate.
Besides, the
retail kings also hold on to stocks and sell
them when they can be priced to their
advantage.
“Moreover, the new
shopping mall is so glitzy with its spanking
new marble floors, lighting and huge range of
products that it has been able to attract
customers from various income brackets,” said
Nandadulal Saha, a leading retailer in Silchar.
Aggressive
marketing also ensures that consumers are
drawn to the retail Mecca.
The Central
Silchar Traders’ Association has now appealed
to the district administration and the
political parties to think up schemes that
will at least allow them to stay afloat.
Nothing seems to
be working in their favour at the moment —
neither the “goodwill” they built
painstakingly over the years, nor the
camaraderie with customers.
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