Sale festivals ahead of Eid to attract shoppers

Bipani Bitan in the city wears a festive look with colourful lighting and decorations. PHOTO: STAR

The 'sale festivals' began to promote sales on the occasion of ensuing Eid.

The 'sale festivals' include raffle draw with attractive prizes like private cars, computers, television and fridge.

Any customer buying goods worth Tk 100, is provided with one ticket and more tickets are given against the marketing volume.

The markets have been decorated with heavy illuminations daily in the evening to attract the customers.

Besides, publicity amid music from microphones set up inside the markets, is being made day and night to lure the customers.

The leading shopping malls Bipani Bitan, Shopping Complex, Mimi Super, Singapore Market at Agrabad, Amin centre, VIP Tower and Sholoshahar Super Market pioneered the launching of sale campaign in the city.

The shop owners of the newly floated posh shopping mall Amin Centre inaugurated the 'sale festival' in the first week of this month amid a colourful ceremony marked by a motorcade procession that moved around the city's main thoroughfares, witnesses and market sources said.

Food Minister Abdullah Al Noman inaugurated the sale festival at the newly built shopping arcade VIP Tower on October 10. Chittagong City Corporation (CCC) Mayor A.B.M.Mohiuddin Chowdhury was present in the inaugural function.

Other shopping malls followed the suit in recent weeks to draw huge customers.

But those shopping malls could not yet draw large number of customers despite hectic campaign.

Siddique Ahmed, owner of a cloth shop at Bipani Bitan in the heart of the city, said, sale has not yet improved as we are not getting huge customers though sale festival was launched.

It will take the middle of Ramadan when sale may pick up, he said. Actually people now do not have enough money for shopping as most of them are facing economic hardship, he added.

We organise sale festival every year before Ramadan and it is a sort of our tradition, Siddique said.

Md.Lokman, owner of a shop selling cosmetics at Bipani Bitan said, we are getting same sale proceeds as we used to have earlier. We may get the impact of sale campaign later on, he said. Abdul Motaleb, a salesman in a cloth shop at Amin centre, said we are trying our best to attract the customers by giving lottery tickets. We hope that number of customers will increase day by day"

Most of the city markets were witnessing an influx of huge foreign goods centering the Eid festival.

On the other hand, due to rampant illuminations in the markets, the residential areas were facing power crisis, Power Development Board sources said.