Will Old City markets shift to e-shops?

The once prime shopping areas like Abids, Koti and Nampally in the Old City wear a deserted look now. These crowd-pulling hubs, which in their heyday, were an abode of “affordable” fashion for people of all ages and income groups, have been seeing decreasing number of people in the shops for the past few years. If what the store owners’ inform is anything to go by, it’s the malls and showrooms that cropped in the New City that are giving a tough time to these business people. So much so that most of the store owners in the Old City are contemplating starting their own e-stores.

The Corporate world that begins in the stretch from Begumpet and goes on till Hitec City and Madhapur has multiple shopping complexes. It is probably the ease of accessibility to these stores that most of the people opt to purchase their clothes from these ‘swanky’ showrooms. In addition, the mainstreaming of e-shopping has opened a multitude of portals for consumers with easy access to a wide range of options and who can forget the delivery to one’s doorstep?

Speaking to the CityTAB, Nayan Rajani, who is a distributor and owner of a wholesale shop in Abids, said, “People these days are not bothered of the quality or the price. All they need is self-satisfaction of buying things at big malls. Even though we provide the best quality goods none of them are ready to buy without any bargains, which of course is not possible at malls. The tag of the brand or a ‘big’ store name is what the current population goes for rather than the product quality.”

“In order to attract customers, we are now in plans of starting a web portal for our business,” he said. Sanjay Kumar, owner of a furniture shop at Nampally shared, “Around 70 per cent of our business has come down in the past five years. Before there was only one area like Koti or Nampally where people from all corners of the city could go for shopping. But, now it has turned easy for people with many showrooms in one area like say Panjagutta.”

“I am planning for some other side income businesses in order to compensate this loss,” he lamented. “We used to have a cloth business, but we were not making profits out of it. Therefore, we renovated to a novelties and gifts store expecting a better market with profits,” informed Urvi Dedhi, who is helping her father with the business in Koti.

“In order to keep ourselves safe from any losses, we are planning to start promoting our products on social media, which is now one of the best platforms to attract customers. Also, to sustain in a heavy competition we are making sure that the products we sell are completely new and unique. We don’t get them from any retailers. We directly get them from Mumbai with best quality service,” she said.

“The most surprising part is that even though we get these unique things there are customers who compare from online stores and crosscheck the price and quality by the reviews mentioned. So, we are also making sure that our workers have good knowledge with the products that are similar on the web,” she said.

By Bhagyashree Kottoori