Navigation

Vashi2Panvel.Com: Navi Mumbai: March 23: The Navi Mumbai Shopping Festival was kicked off on 16th March by the organising event management company Dreamz Media Network (DMN). Seven days into it and the festival has not succeeded in making a mark. Though it promised a lot it seems to have failed to keep up those promises. The event which promised to make shopping into an event has not brought about smiles on the faces of businessmen in Navi Mumbai, who continue to face a prolonged lull in business.


“The sales have been pretty average though people do call inquiring about our participation in the festival. However these calls have been unable to convert into sales”, says Praveen Purne , proprietor, J K Electronics, Airoli. His sentiments are echoed by Deepak Mehta of Kundan Jewellers. “We are not satisfied by this shopping festival. It has been unable to provide a good platform for business as promised”, he says. The degree of dissatisfaction is no less among other participants of the festival. “There has been no proper lighting as promised and absolutely no publicity. A bundle of lights worth Rs 25 and a small banner which would not cost more than Rs 100 is all they have offered for a sum of Rs 1500. Entry points of various areas were ‘supposed’ to be decorated and to worsen it even the response has been pathetic”, adds an irked Rakesh Kothari, owner of Max Electronics, Seawoods.

A variety of businesses like opticians, electronics, jewelers, automobiles, footwear, furniture & furnishing, garments etc have actively participated in the event. The garment business has given an encouraging response with about 50% of the participants being from this business alone. However the response for this section too has been low and grievances remain the same. “As they failed to keep up with their promises leave alone our expectations, we withdrew our participation and got our money refunded”, says Ramesh Choudary, proprietor, Signature Clothing, Koper Khairane.

The ones who have participated are not too happy with their decision, but the ones who haven’t have a reason to smile. “I’m happy that I did not participate. I’ve been told that the event is not a success. Had I participated it would only have been a waste of money”, says Ateeq Ansari, co-partner of Discover Wood, Nerul. Sayed Peer of National Furniture, Nerul is a happy man inspite of participating. His shop was not listed in the shopping festival guide which was circulated along with New Bombay Plus due to some error and neither was his shop decorated. Consequently his money will be refunded.

Amidst all this, Arvind Razzak, proprietor, DMN is modest enough to accept that the event has not been a success. “There are a variety of factors that have contributed to the event not rising up to the level it was expected to. We estimated a participation of 1000+, however only 218 shops participated making it a decisive factor. The outdoor publicity too has not been upto the mark as there was a delay in receiving permission from NMMC”, he says. The other reasons he cites are the recent riots and backing off of some major sponsors at the last moment. “Also March being the end of the financial year, the business is not at its peak”, he adds.

Arvind however is optimistic and takes a positive out of the festival. “It has been a good learning experience for us and we take it in our stride. Also we have gone ahead with it in whatever way we could and prizes like colour TVs and DVD players are being given away that too from our pocket so that our participants are not thoroughly disappointed. And we also plan to conduct this festival again with better planning and on a better scale during Ganesh Chaturthi”, he adds.

For now though the sales have surely been disappointing. Some shop owners are only praying and expecting that sales do pick up as Gudi Padwa approaches whereas the others are skeptic of this possibility. Some also feel that it would have been a success had the publicity been effective. All said and done only time will tell if the event manages to leave any impact in the remaining few days and also if DMN can come up with something better in the future.

By Wasim Sayed