As the festival of lights inches closer, popular shopping destinations are coming alive with people thronging places to purchase everything necessary for the festival.
After a steep fall in sales during the COVID-19 years, markets have been picking up steadily, now seemingly reaching a point of pre-COVID normalcy. With the return of community celebrations, festive needs have grown in demand in the last two years. Alongside festive wear, lamps and pooja items, electronics are also highly in demand since people have a higher tendency of making impulse purchases, according to Suhail Yusuff, the secretary of the Brigade Shop and Establishment Association.
He also said that festive shopping will continue straight from Dasara-Deepavali till Christmas-New Year celebrations, managing to keep a steady spike in sales at a time when it otherwise would have gone down.
During the pandemic, 22% of shops on the road were forced to shut down, he recalled. Preceding the pandemic, repair work happening on roads connecting residential areas to Brigade Road further discouraged people from shopping there. “However, it is much better now as not only have most shops been reoccupied by better, more attractive brands, but through metro connectivity and completion of roadwork in certain areas, not only youngsters but even families are opting to shop on Brigade Road. “This year’s Dasara was fantastic. Sales have picked up 100% and we only expect it to increase further during Deepavali,” said Mr. Yusuff.
Commercial Street, another crowd-favourite, peaks in sales during Deepavali. Sanjay M., president of the Commercial Street Traders Association, said shops on Commercial Street and its by-lanes offer a huge spectrum of product line to a huge spectrum of customers. “There exists a personal relationship between shops and shoppers that you can’t find at malls,” he said.
Other popular destinations such as Malleshwaram, Chickpet and K.R. Market continue to see their annual Deepavali surge.
“I’ve been shopping in the Malleswaram market with my parents since I was a child. It was great to see the festivity and the atmosphere of the market, especially because it had gotten very quiet during the pandemic. So, more than the shopping itself, it’s great to see the liveliness people feel during Deepavali,” said Tejaswini Durbha, a resident of Malleswaram.
On the other hand, Gandhi Bazaar, an old Bengalurean’s shopping haven, is yet to make a big recovery. Guruprasad R.K., secretary of Heritage Basavangudi Residential Welfare Association, said that the Gandhi Bazaar redevelopment plan, and subsequent blocking of connecting roads, has reduced sales by nearly 50%, as noted during Dasara. Almost 80 shops out of the 500 in the area have gradually shut down in the past few years, either due to the significant drop in sales caused by COVID-19 or the perennial roadwork. Roads around Tagore Circle and Ramkrishna Circle were temporarily unblocked during Dasara on request, but they are back to being closed, he said, wondering if Gandhi Bazaar will ever return to its prime.
A lamp seller on the footpath of Gandhi Bazaar shares the sentiment. “People aren’t visiting and sales aren’t happening. Things haven’t been good since last year and it has only gotten worse now. The footpaths have gotten larger which has both reduced space for vehicles and encouraged adjacent shopkeepers to claim this space as theirs. The footpaths should not have been widened. This has also decreased parking space which has discouraged people from shopping here. If there is parking space, there will be customers. Things were good before and business was good. Now since it has fallen, it has also become difficult for us to pay back the loans we’ve taken.”
