Kolkata: Crowd surge at shopping hubs on last pre-Puja Sunday, but biz down by 50%

KOLKATA: On the last Sunday before Puja, the shopping crowd may have broken records, but overall business was down by nearly 50% compared to that of previous years. However, traders and hawkers said they had expected worse and were happy the footfall translated into sales.
“We are grateful to people who came to buy things despite the odds posed by the pandemic,” said Sushil Poddar, president, Confederation of West Bengal Traders’ Associations.
At the end of the Puja shopping week, which typically ends on the last Sunday before Puja, traders and hawkers did a quick stock-taking and found that hawkers across three major shopping hubs — Hatibagan, New Market and Gariahat — almost recovered 50% of their business, while shops managed to recover 30%-40%.
Most shops at New Market and Gariahat have gone into hybrid selling — online and over-the-counter. “About 20% percent of my sales happened virtually,” said Vinay Manglani, the owner of Bombay Silk Store at New Market. The sales picked up by nearly 45%-50% inside the market and over 60% at the hawkers’ outside New Market. Sunil Aswani of Menka Stores said many of his regulars visited the shop and 60% of his pre-lockdown sales were back.
Irfan Khan, a garments shop owner outside New Market, managed to recover only 30% business. “But I am happy to be back in business.”
“Don’t go by footfall. The actual business was nearly 60% down. But the Puja shopping has paved the way for good business in the year ahead,” said Manabendra Saha, owner of Traders Assembly.
“We were struggling with sales which was never the case during earlier Pujas,” said Sulagna Chakraborty, owner of Kids in Gariahat.
At Hatibagan, Shankar Ghosh of Anamika Boutique said, “We have learnt to treat Puja as the beginning of our business year. But this is no usual year — whatever has come is a good way to start afresh.”