The buyers crowded the shopping malls in the capital for clothes and other festival wears at the last moment of their Eid shopping. During visits to different shopping malls on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, shop owners in the city’s shopping arcades and other outlets told this correspondent that they have been getting extraordinary response from the customers as many of them were trying to procure festival wears at the last moment after getting their salaries.
Shoppers, of low income groups, have been thronging the roadside stalls at different parts of the city including New Market, Malibagh, Mouchak, Gulistan, Farmgate and Fakirerpool.
The hawkers, are passing a busy time selling different attires, mainly T-shirts, trousers and children’s clothes. Marzia Ahmed, a female ready-to-wear trader at Fortune Market in city’s Malibagh, said the sales of her showroom went up by nearly 50 percent on Tuesday night.
Satisfied, she said this trend in sales will hopefully continue till the night before the Eid day.
But shop owners at some markets, particularly those selling sarees, expressed disappointment over this year’s Eid sales, saying they are not getting the desired number of customers following decline in the real income of the people in general and increase in the prices of most items as well as political instability.
Shahidul Islam Khan, owner of the Monorama Sarees at Fortune Market, said that sales this time before Eid-ul-Fitr have declined some 50 percent compared to last year.
Women have changed their lifestyle and it seems most are not interested to wear sarees, which affected the saree sales, said M Salauddin Selim at Alif Sarees of Mouchak Market.
Sales managers of two other boutique houses at the Mouchak Market said their sales this year have showed at least 65 percent decline.
“We sold nearly 200 pieces of clothes till noon on Wednesday. The volume of total sales may reach 600 pieces at the end of the day,” said a salesman of Kay Kraft at Malibagh.
Eid shoppers have expressed their dissatisfaction over the prices of clothes and other festival wears, alleging that the shop owners are charging more as the Eid-ul-Fitr is getting nearer.
Hemayet Hossain, who works at a private company, said Tuesday night that he went to a shopping mall to buy a shirt but could not afford it because of the extra price charged.
“The salesman demanded Tk 2,100 for the shirt, which seemed too much to me,” he said. Khadiza Begum, a government official, said she came to do Eid shopping after taking a loan of Tk 10,000.
“Prices of essentials are going up, but our income has not increased. So, we have no other option but to borrow money for Eid shopping,” she said.
The prices of all types of Shalwar-Kameez, sharees, baby’s and gent’s wears has almost doubled this year, the shoppers said.
Shahnoor Akhter, a shopper at the Mouchak Market said the dresses she once bought at around Tk 2,000 before Ramadan is now being sold at Tk 4,500.
The shop owners said that the cost of production of garment has increased on the occasion of the Eid-ul-Fitr and the government also increased duty on foreign dresses and fabrics.
So, they have to increase the price. During the visits to the city shopping malls, it was found that the cost of a locally made lady’s three-piece dress varied from Tk 2,000 to Tk 7,000. A salesman at Mouchak Market said the prices of the baby wears varied from Tk 750 to Tk 5,000 for girls and Tk 650 to Tk 3,500 for boys according to size and quality. A sales man at New Market said they got good response from the customers on Wednesday.
“I sold a good number of unstitched Shalwar-Kameez on cotton Katan, Net Katan, Madrasi-design Katan and Rubia Buta Cotton Kotki.” – UNB
