The footfalls to the annual exhibition this year have been relatively less
Shopping event, popularly known as 'Numaish' (Photo: PTI)
Hyderabad: Perennial flash sales at leading stores and heavy discounts at online stores have not deterred the hardcore shoppers from visiting Numaish.
“The jewellery and clothes here are so unique. Most of these are not available online or even at the popular stores in the city. I make sure to buy Kashmiri scarves and salwar suits each time I visit Numaish,” said a college student. Fareed, the supervisor at one of the handicraft stalls, said, “We have been producing such woodcraft for decades. Visitors are so fascinated that they click photos of these items. If there were such thing available online, I don’t think people would be so interested.”
However, traders are also wary of photos going up online. Iqbal, a cloth merchant, said: “We work hard to bring things that are unique. But photos of our stock taken by some visitors end up on social media or on WhatsApp groups. Online shopping stores keep an eye on Facebook for new trends and patterns, and they pick up designs and patterns from these pictures,” he adds.
However, the footfalls to the annual exhibition this year have been relatively less, and the swine flu scare is alleged to be one of the reasons. Stall owners complained of losses due to decreased footfall. “This year, due to the swine flu scare, there were very few visitors to our stall. We saw at least a 60 per cent decline in our sales,” said Naser, owner of a Kashmiri jewellery stall.
“For the first 15 days, the business was good. But as soon as news about swine flu broke, we started facing the heat. There was a sudden decline in the number of customers to our stall,” complained another apparel seller from Lucknow.
( Source : dc )
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