Mad about Malls
While I am all set for my trip to India, I can’t help but think of the rising “mall-culture” in the country. Sameer has mixed feeling about the increasing importance of malls today
It feels jolly good… Everything stacked …is beyond the purchasing power of the lower middle class and the toiling masses, so effectively the poor – and ugly India — is shut out from the air-conditioned limits of the great Indian malling experience. The middle-middle classes come in their droves. Sari-clad housewives carefully stepping onto the escalators. Families of six. Mostly touch and feel. Check the tag and let go. They are happy hopping shops.
Vijay believes that in spite of facing competition from international brands, Indian stores are doing well
Amongst all the malls coming up, and the tenant strategy, I am most impressed with Pantaloons. These stores belong to the Future Group, and they seem to have taken a decision to promote only Indian or House Brands. I find some of their house brands pretty good and well priced compared to the international ones. The others, who are also doing well, are Shoppers’ Stop and Lifestyle. I have seen these stores improve their layouts over the past two years, and introduce new products and variants constantly…
One comment
Kaddu
May 9th, 2008, 1:29 am | #
My experience with Pantaloon was a bit different!
I bought a track pajama of really good quality, from an ordinary air-conditioned ready-made garment store, for 325 bucks. Few days later, I was browsing through Pantaloon Guwahati & decided I could do with another similar kinda pajama. The only stuff they had to offer, that even remotely matched the quality I had bought earlier, was for almost 700 bucks!
The short “kurtis” I wear over jeans, which I get from Sarojini Nagar in New Delhi for 200 to 275 bucks, Pantaloon had “branded imitations” of those kurtis (I say “imitations” because the fabric they use as their base material is what we girls generally use for a “slip” to wear under the transparent stuff!) for over 500 bucks! Same problem with the salwar suits and the “ghagra-cholis”!
Cheapest fabric, sky-high high prices and not enough variety to choose from - that, in a nut-shell, is Pantaloon! Heck! Even the stationery and books section was pathetic!
I guess it would be good for people with “easy money”, for “easy comes, easy goes”! But for me… a simple, upper-middle-class, working professional… well, I’d like more quality for my hard-earned money!
Bottomline: I touched, I felt, I checked the tags… and I let go!
Ha ha! Love the concept of ur site btw!
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