Motihari, despite the small town tag to have 3 shopping malls: you can now say ‘WOW’!
Motihari: everyone has noticed in recent past – the sleepy little towns of Bihar are not sleepy anymore and even the village bazaars and Kasbahs in Bihar show signs of the urban rate race. Typically now, on an early morning in a village Bihar you now see rows of commuters on bicycles, motorbikes and autos rushing to work in nearby town offices and shops. And to top all such changes, shopping mall culture has now hit small town Bihar with full force. The giddy consumer is responding with a passion that the mall owners are loving, going by the reports.
According to a newspaper report on Motihari, there are currently three malls that will stand to compete with each other. V-Mart and Vishal chains have been around for some time, and a third entrant Dubai-based Zakariya Group is hurrying to start its outlet. V Mart, a mega fashion mall, opened doors in Motihari on October 2 and Vishal Mega Mart had opened an attractive outlet in March this year. Both the marts have stocked up on readymade garments since their launch and have been doing brisk business.
The trend more or less parallels that of the capital Patna. First came in the big brands – over the past three-four years, outlets of branded companies like Lee Solly, Cotton County, Reebok, Koutons (with separate stores for male, female and children), Ant, Palm Treee, Lilliput, Allen Cooper, Peter England, Belmonte, Charlie Outlaw, Cantabil, Duke, Priknit, and TNG in Motihari and Bettiah representing a change in lifestyle.
The bigger shopping malls actually represent the second major wave in the consumer revolution and promise to affect both the new brands and the traditional retailers. Madhusudan Jalan, who owns a Cantabil showroom says ‘Quality customers still favour yarns produced by reputed companies.’ But both he and Dharmveer Jaiswal, the proprietor of a Raymond’s showroom, feel that big counters suffered an annual loss of almost 30 to 35 per cent, while small cloth merchants suffered around 50 per cent because of branded showrooms and the booming mall culture.
It is not difficult to imagine in the days ahead a series of shopping malls for the rural folk that may stock fertilizers, cosmetics, engine oil, stationery for school children and branded jeans for men, with a separate section for women and children under the common roof. Not to forget the rural KFC takeaways not uncommon along the highways in Punjab.
Sleepy small towns, indeed!
[Courtesy: The Telegraph]