THE saffron, white and green ambience of Big Bazaars across the country went completely unnoticed in the midst of a riot of shoppers. The five-day ‘independence sale’ of Big Bazaar, with some items discounted by nearly 60% to mark the 60th Independence Day, culminated across the country with people lining up for upwards of three-four hours before they could step foot into some of the stores.
As a result, the hypermarket chain saw crowds well in excess of the 15,000 footfalls they get over weekends in some of their bigger stores. At 11.30 PM at Phoenix Mills, Mumbai, it seemed like a normal holiday shopping crowd. However, within an hour, as school Independence Day functions wound up, the crowds came, and both the parking lot and the mall attendants were stretched. The police were on stand-by to avoid any untoward incident after last year’s fiasco at Phoenix Mills. A steady stream of delivery trucks made their way into the mall over a period of three hours to ensure that there were no stockouts. As the entry line at Phoenix Mills wound itself around the extremities of the mall, the store attendants provided biscuits and water to the waiting people. Says Rajan Malhotra, chief executive, Big Bazaar, “We were better prepared this year after the events of last year. Hence we spread it out over a longer period and made better arrangements for all our customers.”
The total number of Big Bazaars, at 66, have more than doubled from last year. According to Mr Malhotra, the targeted revenues from the five-day sale was Rs 150 crore. Some categories like home furnishings had discounts upwards of 30% on a listed price of Rs 50,000 and were a fast moving category
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