N H ZUBERI
KARACHI: With less than 10 days left for Eid-ul-Fitr, shopping is going on in full swing as people crowd city markets to buy garments, shoes and gifts for friends and family. People from all walks of life are seen moving from one shop to another to collect items of their choice. Makeshift shops on road pavements are also drawing a large number of buyers.
Eid is probably falling on June 15, depending on the visibility of new moon a night before. Besides observing the holy month of Ramadan, people also engage in extensive shopping before Eid. Several make-shift shops and stalls have come up on the main road and other parts of the city. Buyers are bound to get attracted to these artistically decorated shops with varieties of items on display like readymade garments and other accessories.
Markets in the city present a colourful sight as shops illuminated with colourful lights selling clothes, bangles, shoos shoppers and heavy rush of buyers are witnessed almost every day. While visiting shopping malls, this correspondent found salespersons running to and fro to serve customers, as sales have gone up at the end of the second week of Ramadan. Shops with a good collection of trendy and fashionable dresses have done brisk business during this period.
City markets, shopping centers are crowded after Taravi till midnight. The readymade garment shops and shoe stores are the ones drawing the most customers as people are busying buying new clothes. Considering the demand ahead of Eid, different fashion houses, boutiques outlasts, branded and non branded showrooms have already stockpiled dresses in their stores. The buyers from affluent section are crowding big shopping centers like the lackey one, while the low- income people are seen purchasing their desired items from the Saddar market and footpath shops in the city.
Customers are not only thronging clothing shops, but also visiting the outlets of mobile handsets in the market where almost all the leading global brands have their show rooms. Designers were targeting customers in big way through their websites. Customers can easily choose products like cotton and lawn cloth, he added.
Beside shopping centers shops and carts offering used clothes and shoes also drew crowd. Mostly lower and middle income group visiting light house and other used cloth markets to get something for their kids. People in middle and low income groups were trying to buy affordable new products particularly garments and shoes only for their children because they could not see displeasure on the innocent faces. For this purpose the low-income people preferred to visit stalls at roadsides and on footpaths because products available on these stalls are less expensive than the shops.
Businessmen said there is no estimate how much business is been generated during Ramadan and Eid. A rough estimate put it as mush as Rs 90 billion or more businesses. This year the figure may exceed this figure, they claimed. Markets like Samama on University Road, Lucky one, Dolmen Center, Tariq Road, Bahadurabad, Saddar etc preset a desert look during the early hours of the day. However after Magrib prayers people with family started coming in for Eid shopping.
