A tech-savvy shopping mall

Its officials at least agree.

"Unlike other major electronics sale centres of the city which mainly focus on luxury items, Bashundhara City will sell everyday electronic gadgets and utilities. A buyer will find all he needs for his daily use," says Mustafizur Rahman, senior executive director of the City.

Brand computers will also take up a primary portion of the trade-out and electronics products will mostly be on level 1 (first floor) and the computer vendors will have their outlets on level 6 of the eight-storied podium facing Panthapath, he says.

The shopping slots are being sold to private parties for a one-off payment of Tk 19,500 per square feet for each slot. Asked if any foreign stores or chain-links are interested in renting or buying the slots, Rahman says they are not concerned about such a matter, all they care about is getting slots sold. "It entirely depends on the owner of the slots to decide who they want to rent it out to, and if that is a foreign link, it may well be the case," notes Rahman.

The city also promises a spacious and cost-effective cyber café located among the entertainment-oriented Level 8 of the mall. The management will provide adequate number of computers with the best facilities to go with and are hopeful of attracting consumers of all ages. A high-speed broadband connection will be in use.

There will also be a Multimedia International Conference Room, which will have one laptop internet connectivity per four seats and the City will provide the facilities through a local network setup using a 80,000-foot copper cable (CAT6 cable) and a D-link device to distribute about 100 Mbps per connection. A back-up network has a tremendous 1000 Mbps speed to share.

To check stealing of equipment, all of them are patched with bar codes to activate scanning and alarm devices located at the doorways of the slots. Installation of such devices however entirely depends on the slot owners.

The City also offers home delivery of most of its electronics and computer goods. A floor manager will be on each floor to take care of such demands. It would have a customer reward programme in the electronics and computer sections to allow buyers to get points, which they may later use for fetching gift items or getting discounts on specific items.