SHILLONG: Even though the Durga Puja is just a couple of days away, the festivity is yet to grip the city especially in respect of puja marketing.
While the Puja celebrations would begin from Saturday, the shopkeepers in Shillong are of the view that their sales definitely have not been very impressive like previous years.
Kavesh Mordani, owner of Big Glamour shop said that the sales had been poor this year as the country’s economy was in a bad shape
Lamenting that the money is not rolling and people are not spending much, he added that there were other factors like online marketing as well which has added that to the poor sales.
“We however are hoping to have a better festive season,” he said.
A Raza, a shoe shop owner at Iewduh also echoed similar view saying people now a days have to think before spending and probably this is the reason that the sale is not impressive this year
A Das, a person who sells clothes in footpaths is hoping that things would improve in the last two days of Puja even as he added that the crowd this time in the market was also very less in comparison to that of previous years which indicates that the people are spending smartly this time when everything is very expensive.
Mr Narayaan, owner of Saree Palace, however, added that sales were manageable this time and it would improve further in the last two three days.
A shopper P Thapa , who has been busy shopping since two days for his entire family also says that everything has become so expensive suddenly and hence there is very less crowd in the market
He also said that some brands in the city were selling their products at reasonable rate and so those brands were drawing buyers much more that expensive brands.
He also added that another reason for less crowd in the market may be that most of the people now prefer to go for online shopping which is easy and reliable.
Meanwhile, some hotel owners said that things were improving as far as tourists’ arrival was concerned. Owners said that tourists had started coming to the city and there had been a rush for hotel booking for the next couple of days.
