Malls, department stores warm up for festive season

KATHMANDU, Sept 6: Shopping malls and department stores in the Valley are gearing up to attract more customers during the upcoming festive season by introducing different varieties of schemes, offering gift hampers and organizing entertaining programs ranging from live music performance to fun-filled activities.

Promoters of malls and department stores say discount offers and lucky draws not only help attract more customers but also boost sales. [break]

Department stores, malls and shopping centers record almost 100 percent growth in sales during the Dashain festival -- one of the biggest Hindu festivals in the country.

Nishant Shrestha, marketing manager of Civil Mall, Sundhara said, though people´s disposable income has not shown much growth, sales is expected to grow because people purchase stuffs during the festive season regardless of their income. “We are hopeful that the scheme and discount offers that we have introduced will help boost sales during this festival,” Shrestha told Republica.

Civil Mall has launched ´Tata Vista Civil Mall Dashain and Tihar Malamal Festival´ for the upcoming festive season. Customers buying stuffs at Civil Mall during Dashain and Tihar can win different prizes, including a Tata Vista car as bumper prize, trip to Dubai for two persons, free home appliances, cash voucher worth Rs 20,000 every week and free tickets to Central Food Court, Bal Sansar and QFX Central.

“Besides these prizes, customers purchasing goods worth Rs 1,000 and above will get a bottle of Pepsi for free,” said Shrestha.

The campaign started from September 2 and will last till October 28. Civil Mall is also organizing a music festival featuring local bands and singers on Saturdays throughout the campaign period.

Though United World Trade Centre (UWTC) at Tripureshwar has not introduced any specific schemes for the festival, the mall is throwing doors of its entertainment zone open during the festive season.

Prakash Pandey of UWTC Business Association told Republica that the stores in the shopping mall are planning to announce up to 80 percent discount on various products. “We are yet to fix discount rates,” Pandey said. He further added that UWTC is opening the entertainment zone that will have gaming cum kids play zone and bowling alley during Dashain.

Other malls like Kathmandu Mall at Sundhara and Bluebird Mall at Tripureshwar are also planning to introduce special discount offers, while department stores like Bhat-Bhateni, Bigmart and Bluebird Mart are introducing gift vouchers and discount offers.

“Besides regular discount offers, we plan to conduct celebrity shows and give away attractive prizes to our customers,” said Binod Tuladhar, managing director of Bluebird Mall, adding, “The whole idea behind introducing special discount offers and schemes is to give a value to customer´s spending and make them happy during the festive season.”