Page 64 - DMGT552_VISUAL_MERCHANDISING

Unit 3: Image Mix

If one looks at Gurgaon, adjacent to the union capital of New Delhi, any weekend presents Notes
a chaotic picture with traffic congestions and huge crowds of visitors crowding the twenty
odd big malls that it houses. And this is only Gurgaon. At the other end of Delhi in the East
is Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh which also boasts sprawling malls.
Sales and bargain deals, attractive prizes, and schemes are the sure fire success formulae
that the shopkeepers and showroom and super bazaars use to lure visitors in huge numbers.
Malls are a mega hit.

And in fact, it is the semi-urban areas, small towns and cities, described as Tier II and Tier
III towns (say an Amritsar or a Moga in Punjab, or Indore in Madhya Pradesh, or Nagpur
in Maharashtra, or Pune for that matter) that are powering the retail revolution which is
sweeping the urban and rural areas. Malls, the temples of consumerism are cropping up
everywhere. These malls have changed the way people are shopping. They are teaching
them how to appreciate the good things of life. ‘Comfort’, ‘style’, ‘convenience’ and ‘cool’,
are only some of the words used by the shoppers introduced to the mall culture.
And no one is complaining. Not the mall owners, not the shopkeepers, and certainly not
the marketing men and women of the big brands. Malls are the battlegrounds where the
brands, small, medium and big, the known, the not-so-well-known and the wanna-be
ones, fight it out for the consumer’s attention. And the consumer is ‘loving it’ and asking
for more.
Yes, this is one culture that consumers are happy about. So happy that no one seems to
mind the ‘unplanned expenditure’ incurred by an outing to such an enticing place. They
enjoy air-conditioned comfort, availability of a range of merchandise under one roof, and
a one-stop family entertainment arena.
While the consumer is thus slowly getting hooked onto the mall culture, the owners of the
malls are hardly complaining. Actually, they are busy planning the erection of new malls,
and the more the merrier seems to be motto of the moment. Given the rate at which malls
are coming up, the commercial as well as residential real estate business is spiraling
upwards. The range and scope of the economic activity generated from mall culture
promises many things to many people.

Other than offering shoppers more value for money, the scale of operations generates
employment opportunities, direct and indirect, for thousands of people.
India was to have some 350 malls out of which nearly 250 were planned in tier II and tier
III towns, taking this revolution further. Now there is a new association of big brands that
has come together to give brand loyalists something to cherish, aspire for, and much,
much more. Gurgaon alone hopes to play host to some 150 odd malls.
But are all the investors who rushed into the mall business happy? Are the returns coming
in? Going by the mall traffic on weekdays, this seems highly unlikely. Barring the ones
that have hit the big time and built a stable, loyal customer base, the shop owners and
showroom managers are worried. They are worried because the Indian customer is yet to
vote for malls when it came to making concrete purchases that translate into turnovers
and profits. He still votes for the friendly, neighbourhood ‘kirana’ stores when it comes to
groceries and for the shopping complexes where he has been shopping all his life.
For the big buyers, say for weddings, or corporate purchases, the preferred venues are still
the traditional markets like the Johari Bazaar in old Jaipur city where bargaining still
rules. Trust and faith still matter the most. Mall owners and shop owners in the malls,
wish that all visitors (often a visit to a mall is just seen as entertainment) would turn into
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