IIPM’s Management Consulting Arm - Planman Consulting
These are the streets where the hustle and bustle of buying and selling are at their noisiest best, where the biggest bargains are struck, where India goes to shop
Even a decade back, Lindsay Street, in Esplanade, the
heart of Kolkata, was more a hit with movie buffs. Opera houses, dating back to the British days like Lighthouse, New Empire, Tiger and Chaplin were the hotspots. Middle and upper middle class Bengalis and Anglo-Indians would throng the adjacent New Market or Stuart Hogg Market for shopping. Today, on the eve of the Durga Puja, the same Lindsay Street reverberates since morning till late evening as lakhs and lakhs of shoppers jostle for their share of Puja marketing.
To keep pace with change, Tiger has metamorphosed into ‘Mega Shop’ and Lighthouse rechristened ‘City Mart’. These multi-storey shopping malls with glossy exteriors stock products of a variety of brands. Even the Left-controlled Kolkata Municipal Corporation has joined the 'change' bandwagon. Its parking space has been converted into the bustling Anarkali Market where more than 70 shops do business. Avid readers of English novels used to visit this street, just beside the Oberoi Grand, to buy old books at throwaway prices. The book shops are no more there. They had to vacate the place for Shree Ram Arcade, a garment mall, the first to usher in the change.
About a decade back, Lindsay Street witnessed the first change of façade with ‘Sree Leathers’, the biggest shoe shop of Kolkata, offering latest designs at nearly half the rate of Bata products. Earlier, choosy garment buyers used to visit the New Market and get their garments tailored by Muslim ostagars. The changed times have elbowed them out. New Market shop owners today stock ready-made branded garments. And with this change, Maidan Market, the first shopping complex of Kolkata, built by the then chief minister Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy to assimilate East Bengal refugees into the mainstream, has lost its glory before the glittering Lindsay Street complex.
Today's Kolkata has all the known brands – Peter England, Van Heusen, Koutons, Levi's, Allen Solly, Louis Philippe, Turtle and what not. But tailor-made personally fitted outfits have nearly vanished. Middle-aged Amal feels, “Somewhere we are missing that personal touch. Earlier we used to bargain. Today, bargain is out.”
If one wants to catch a glimpse of Chennai's shopping spirit, he has to come to Ranganathan Street of T. Nagar. A place where you shop till you drop, this small street is less than half a kilometre connecting Mambalam railway station with North Usman Road.
With the biggest multi-storey to the smallest shop on the platform, you can buy everything here, from pins to voluminous household articles. People from all over Tamil Nadu come here to shop for marriages and festivals.
Stephen, who has come all the way from Madurai, tells TSI, ''This is the ideal place to shop when a newly-wed couple is starting out. From furniture to a child's cradle, one can buy everything here. I think one can save at least Rs 75,000, if one shops here for marriages.”
At Jayachandran Textiles, one of the biggest retail shops, the floors are choc-a-bloc with women. Owner J. Sundaralingam says, ''From October till Deepavali, we see very heavy rush here. This crowd will continue till Pongal in January. Saturdays and Sundays are totally full here. On an average, 50,000 people throng this street every day. During the festive season, it swells to over 2,00,000. Even breathing becomes a problem then.”
A view of the street from the top of the building seems like an endless sea of men and women moving at the slowest possible speed. There are about 300 shops which sell branded goods to local products.
Essentially, the shoppers come here as a family. Women
dictate the terms. Many eateries line the street. The big multi-storeyed shops have their own food joints. The tailor shops in the basements do brisk business. Manjula, who runs a tailoring shop, says, ''We make a churidar in one hour. This is a catchy prospect. So this place is always abuzz with activity. But sometimes when the number of orders is high and there are frequent power cuts, we face trouble in meeting the deadline.”
Essentially a shopping street for the middle class, this street has been popular since the 1970s. But today the crowd has become unmanageable. The street, too, cannot grow more than it already has, parking woes are mounting. Space is scarce. So to meet the needs, most shops have grown upwards as they can't expand horizontally. The biggest shops have a minimum of eight floors. There is a flip side to this street about scores of salesmen employed at ridiculously low salaries. "Angadi Theru," a Tamil film on life on this street and the struggle of sales employees, was an instant hit with the Tamil people.
Twenty years back, there existed small retail stores at Linking Road in Khar, Mumbai, which would sell footwear, apparels and basic necessities. However, with increase in purchasing power, customers prefer to shop at premium stores like Tommy Hilfiger, Benetton, Espirit, Portico among others which have sprung up post liberalisation.
Earlier, customers preferred to buy shoes from Carona and Bata. But due to rising rentals and with changing consumer aspiration for premium branded products and lifestyle, brands such as Tremode, Mochi, Regal, Metro have now become the choices for footwear and accessories as these stores provide different varieties and styles. As a result, Carona and Bata slowly started fading away. Currently, rental for a retail store here ranges between Rs 500 and Rs 700 per square feet.
According to Monesh Bhojwani, assistant vice president – retail services, Jones Lang LaSalle India, “Still, there are retailers which cater to the value segment that stretch between National College and Gazebo restaurant in Linking Road locality. They include New World of Titan Showroom, Manzoni from the Raymond Group, food and beverage store such as Only Parathas, KFC. High Streets always look at enhancing, by providing visibility to the advertising value of a branded store, vis-à-vis a store which would exist in one corner of a mall.” However, parking is a huge problem here.
Strangely, MG Road and Brigade road, shopping hubs of Bangalore, have seen a downturn in retail business. These streets, once busy with tourists, travellers and high class customers, hardly find customers these days. Shopkeepers attribute this to a decline in number of visitors and the changed buying attitude of settlers from outside the state. “For the last couple of years, we are facing a decline in business. This year has been worst. The economy is down. People have no money to spend. We sell ornaments, jewels and embroidery materials. Earlier foreign customers used to buy these materials without hesitating to spend money. But, nowadays Indian customers are ready to pay but not the foreigners. Just now four Americans were here. They liked something and enquired about its price. When I said it was for Rs 2000, they found it to be very costly and left,” says Lathif of Highway Stores.
But branded shops are finding customers regularly and most of them are young Indians. Adidas, Puma, Soles, Pizza Hut, Cafe Coffee Day, etc are the places where Bangalore youth shop and hang out. Pubs and discotheques like Brigade Garden, Sticks, Zeus Sports Bar, Fusion Lounge, Fuga, Zero G, Club Nero and Hard Rock Cafe are making good money.
Sector 17 of Chandigarh has become the face of an affluent Punjab. It is a throbbing, vibrant shopping centre, a dream venue for shoppers with all major international brands vying for their attention. The chic showrooms are of international standards with their attractive display windows and state-of-the-art interiors.
Sunil Kapoor, manager of Pepe Jeans, says, “In spite of the rents being on the higher side, we are always doing good business. Our clientele mainly includes the young generation, especially students of educational institutions. In addition, tourists going to Himachal also stop here to do their shopping.”
Sector 17 is also a favourite joint of the foodies with many good restaurants and pubs situated here. While Neelam Cinema caters to the cinema goers, Nukkad nataks or street plays are regularly staged with some social message, helping the shoppers to be connected to the real pulse of the country.
Renu Sharma shops at Sector 17 every month. She hails from the nearby town of Kharar. Working with a multinational company in Mohali, she says, “I have seen lots of changes here. There was a time when you could not find the big brands like Nautica, Color plus, Espirit etc but now all those are available. If one can't afford these brands, there are Koutons and Cotton County to pick your ware from. Every time we come here in the evening, and go back home after having dinner.
A three-km stroll from Abids to Koti through Troop Bazar, Begum Bazaar and Sultan Bazar gives you a glimpse of the bustling retail heart of Hyderabad. It has always remained unfazed, business is always brisk despite the recession, inflation, the Satyam scam and IT sector retrenchments.
If the promenade starts with Abids, one must pass through
the swanky malls flanked by small shops. Troop Bazar starts next to the multi-theatre Ramakrishna Cinema, owned by the NTR clan. With about 200 shops dealing in electrical goods and an equal number in sanitary ware, Troop Bazar is considered the biggest such bazaar in the country. The narrow roads, resembling that of a labyrinth, hardly allow vehicular traffic. Even pedestrian movement at times becomes difficult. Customers queue up to get their goods through a phased self-service method being followed for centuries.
“Since bargaining is not entertained, shopping at Troop Bazaar saves time. Cut-throat competition saves money. There is usually a discount of 10 to 15 per cent and even more depending on how much you are purchasing,” Narpat Singh of Ritu Lites told TSI. Traders from all major commercial corners of the state throng the Begum Bazaar, a major market for gold, silver, commodities, dry fruits, besides household accessories. The trails shrink further on to Koti’s Sultan Bazaar, a big shopping area of myriad varieties of goods ranging from the biggest chic brands to the relatively obscure ones. “I often find myself loitering in the street as I am a long-time buyer here,” Sree Vidya Chintada, a software professional and a model, told TSI.
Recession and inflation has taken the city by a storm. Amidst recession blues, corporates have gone on a budgeting mode. The elitist uplands of the city, Banjara Hills and Jubilee Hills, learnt serious lessons from the recession roadblock, as the main patrons of the commercial activity of these areas, IT professionals, lost their jobs in the ‘cost cutting and rightsizing’ exercise. But business continues unabated on the age-old Abids-Koti road where nothing seems to change.
But change is the over-riding story in the Park Street-Camac Street area of Kolkata, which has always attracted high-end buyers, foodies and pub hoppers. Branded garments, imported cosmetics and fashion items fill up the shelves, glamorous mannequins lure customers in. Nearly every Calcuttan has his or her share of nostalgia about Park Street. But Generation Next does not care about sentimentality. Three-piece suits have made way for knee-torn jeans and shimmering party wear. What is gone is gone. Welcome to New India which promises to get newer with every passing year.
(P. Sankararama Subramanian, Jatinder Kaur, Mona Mehta, Chandrasekhar Bhattacharjee, Naresh Nunna and Suprabha Naik contributed to this article)
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
Run after passion and not money, says Arindam Chaudhuri
IIPM BBA MBA B-School: Rabindranath Tagore Peace Prize To Irom Chanu Sharmila
Award Conferred To Irom Chanu Sharmila By IIPM
IIPM Lucknow – News article in Economic Times and Times of India
These are the streets where the hustle and bustle of buying and selling are at their noisiest best, where the biggest bargains are struck, where India goes to shop
Even a decade back, Lindsay Street, in Esplanade, the
heart of Kolkata, was more a hit with movie buffs. Opera houses, dating back to the British days like Lighthouse, New Empire, Tiger and Chaplin were the hotspots. Middle and upper middle class Bengalis and Anglo-Indians would throng the adjacent New Market or Stuart Hogg Market for shopping. Today, on the eve of the Durga Puja, the same Lindsay Street reverberates since morning till late evening as lakhs and lakhs of shoppers jostle for their share of Puja marketing.To keep pace with change, Tiger has metamorphosed into ‘Mega Shop’ and Lighthouse rechristened ‘City Mart’. These multi-storey shopping malls with glossy exteriors stock products of a variety of brands. Even the Left-controlled Kolkata Municipal Corporation has joined the 'change' bandwagon. Its parking space has been converted into the bustling Anarkali Market where more than 70 shops do business. Avid readers of English novels used to visit this street, just beside the Oberoi Grand, to buy old books at throwaway prices. The book shops are no more there. They had to vacate the place for Shree Ram Arcade, a garment mall, the first to usher in the change.
About a decade back, Lindsay Street witnessed the first change of façade with ‘Sree Leathers’, the biggest shoe shop of Kolkata, offering latest designs at nearly half the rate of Bata products. Earlier, choosy garment buyers used to visit the New Market and get their garments tailored by Muslim ostagars. The changed times have elbowed them out. New Market shop owners today stock ready-made branded garments. And with this change, Maidan Market, the first shopping complex of Kolkata, built by the then chief minister Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy to assimilate East Bengal refugees into the mainstream, has lost its glory before the glittering Lindsay Street complex.
Today's Kolkata has all the known brands – Peter England, Van Heusen, Koutons, Levi's, Allen Solly, Louis Philippe, Turtle and what not. But tailor-made personally fitted outfits have nearly vanished. Middle-aged Amal feels, “Somewhere we are missing that personal touch. Earlier we used to bargain. Today, bargain is out.”
If one wants to catch a glimpse of Chennai's shopping spirit, he has to come to Ranganathan Street of T. Nagar. A place where you shop till you drop, this small street is less than half a kilometre connecting Mambalam railway station with North Usman Road.
With the biggest multi-storey to the smallest shop on the platform, you can buy everything here, from pins to voluminous household articles. People from all over Tamil Nadu come here to shop for marriages and festivals.
Stephen, who has come all the way from Madurai, tells TSI, ''This is the ideal place to shop when a newly-wed couple is starting out. From furniture to a child's cradle, one can buy everything here. I think one can save at least Rs 75,000, if one shops here for marriages.”
At Jayachandran Textiles, one of the biggest retail shops, the floors are choc-a-bloc with women. Owner J. Sundaralingam says, ''From October till Deepavali, we see very heavy rush here. This crowd will continue till Pongal in January. Saturdays and Sundays are totally full here. On an average, 50,000 people throng this street every day. During the festive season, it swells to over 2,00,000. Even breathing becomes a problem then.”
A view of the street from the top of the building seems like an endless sea of men and women moving at the slowest possible speed. There are about 300 shops which sell branded goods to local products.
Essentially, the shoppers come here as a family. Women
dictate the terms. Many eateries line the street. The big multi-storeyed shops have their own food joints. The tailor shops in the basements do brisk business. Manjula, who runs a tailoring shop, says, ''We make a churidar in one hour. This is a catchy prospect. So this place is always abuzz with activity. But sometimes when the number of orders is high and there are frequent power cuts, we face trouble in meeting the deadline.”Essentially a shopping street for the middle class, this street has been popular since the 1970s. But today the crowd has become unmanageable. The street, too, cannot grow more than it already has, parking woes are mounting. Space is scarce. So to meet the needs, most shops have grown upwards as they can't expand horizontally. The biggest shops have a minimum of eight floors. There is a flip side to this street about scores of salesmen employed at ridiculously low salaries. "Angadi Theru," a Tamil film on life on this street and the struggle of sales employees, was an instant hit with the Tamil people.
Twenty years back, there existed small retail stores at Linking Road in Khar, Mumbai, which would sell footwear, apparels and basic necessities. However, with increase in purchasing power, customers prefer to shop at premium stores like Tommy Hilfiger, Benetton, Espirit, Portico among others which have sprung up post liberalisation.
Earlier, customers preferred to buy shoes from Carona and Bata. But due to rising rentals and with changing consumer aspiration for premium branded products and lifestyle, brands such as Tremode, Mochi, Regal, Metro have now become the choices for footwear and accessories as these stores provide different varieties and styles. As a result, Carona and Bata slowly started fading away. Currently, rental for a retail store here ranges between Rs 500 and Rs 700 per square feet.
According to Monesh Bhojwani, assistant vice president – retail services, Jones Lang LaSalle India, “Still, there are retailers which cater to the value segment that stretch between National College and Gazebo restaurant in Linking Road locality. They include New World of Titan Showroom, Manzoni from the Raymond Group, food and beverage store such as Only Parathas, KFC. High Streets always look at enhancing, by providing visibility to the advertising value of a branded store, vis-à-vis a store which would exist in one corner of a mall.” However, parking is a huge problem here.
Strangely, MG Road and Brigade road, shopping hubs of Bangalore, have seen a downturn in retail business. These streets, once busy with tourists, travellers and high class customers, hardly find customers these days. Shopkeepers attribute this to a decline in number of visitors and the changed buying attitude of settlers from outside the state. “For the last couple of years, we are facing a decline in business. This year has been worst. The economy is down. People have no money to spend. We sell ornaments, jewels and embroidery materials. Earlier foreign customers used to buy these materials without hesitating to spend money. But, nowadays Indian customers are ready to pay but not the foreigners. Just now four Americans were here. They liked something and enquired about its price. When I said it was for Rs 2000, they found it to be very costly and left,” says Lathif of Highway Stores.
But branded shops are finding customers regularly and most of them are young Indians. Adidas, Puma, Soles, Pizza Hut, Cafe Coffee Day, etc are the places where Bangalore youth shop and hang out. Pubs and discotheques like Brigade Garden, Sticks, Zeus Sports Bar, Fusion Lounge, Fuga, Zero G, Club Nero and Hard Rock Cafe are making good money.
Sector 17 of Chandigarh has become the face of an affluent Punjab. It is a throbbing, vibrant shopping centre, a dream venue for shoppers with all major international brands vying for their attention. The chic showrooms are of international standards with their attractive display windows and state-of-the-art interiors.
Sunil Kapoor, manager of Pepe Jeans, says, “In spite of the rents being on the higher side, we are always doing good business. Our clientele mainly includes the young generation, especially students of educational institutions. In addition, tourists going to Himachal also stop here to do their shopping.”
Sector 17 is also a favourite joint of the foodies with many good restaurants and pubs situated here. While Neelam Cinema caters to the cinema goers, Nukkad nataks or street plays are regularly staged with some social message, helping the shoppers to be connected to the real pulse of the country.
Renu Sharma shops at Sector 17 every month. She hails from the nearby town of Kharar. Working with a multinational company in Mohali, she says, “I have seen lots of changes here. There was a time when you could not find the big brands like Nautica, Color plus, Espirit etc but now all those are available. If one can't afford these brands, there are Koutons and Cotton County to pick your ware from. Every time we come here in the evening, and go back home after having dinner.
A three-km stroll from Abids to Koti through Troop Bazar, Begum Bazaar and Sultan Bazar gives you a glimpse of the bustling retail heart of Hyderabad. It has always remained unfazed, business is always brisk despite the recession, inflation, the Satyam scam and IT sector retrenchments.
If the promenade starts with Abids, one must pass through
the swanky malls flanked by small shops. Troop Bazar starts next to the multi-theatre Ramakrishna Cinema, owned by the NTR clan. With about 200 shops dealing in electrical goods and an equal number in sanitary ware, Troop Bazar is considered the biggest such bazaar in the country. The narrow roads, resembling that of a labyrinth, hardly allow vehicular traffic. Even pedestrian movement at times becomes difficult. Customers queue up to get their goods through a phased self-service method being followed for centuries.“Since bargaining is not entertained, shopping at Troop Bazaar saves time. Cut-throat competition saves money. There is usually a discount of 10 to 15 per cent and even more depending on how much you are purchasing,” Narpat Singh of Ritu Lites told TSI. Traders from all major commercial corners of the state throng the Begum Bazaar, a major market for gold, silver, commodities, dry fruits, besides household accessories. The trails shrink further on to Koti’s Sultan Bazaar, a big shopping area of myriad varieties of goods ranging from the biggest chic brands to the relatively obscure ones. “I often find myself loitering in the street as I am a long-time buyer here,” Sree Vidya Chintada, a software professional and a model, told TSI.
Recession and inflation has taken the city by a storm. Amidst recession blues, corporates have gone on a budgeting mode. The elitist uplands of the city, Banjara Hills and Jubilee Hills, learnt serious lessons from the recession roadblock, as the main patrons of the commercial activity of these areas, IT professionals, lost their jobs in the ‘cost cutting and rightsizing’ exercise. But business continues unabated on the age-old Abids-Koti road where nothing seems to change.
But change is the over-riding story in the Park Street-Camac Street area of Kolkata, which has always attracted high-end buyers, foodies and pub hoppers. Branded garments, imported cosmetics and fashion items fill up the shelves, glamorous mannequins lure customers in. Nearly every Calcuttan has his or her share of nostalgia about Park Street. But Generation Next does not care about sentimentality. Three-piece suits have made way for knee-torn jeans and shimmering party wear. What is gone is gone. Welcome to New India which promises to get newer with every passing year.
(P. Sankararama Subramanian, Jatinder Kaur, Mona Mehta, Chandrasekhar Bhattacharjee, Naresh Nunna and Suprabha Naik contributed to this article)
For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
Run after passion and not money, says Arindam Chaudhuri
IIPM BBA MBA B-School: Rabindranath Tagore Peace Prize To Irom Chanu Sharmila
Award Conferred To Irom Chanu Sharmila By IIPM
IIPM Lucknow – News article in Economic Times and Times of India
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