Markets abuzz with shoppers

Shopping except slow purchase of sacrificial animals has got momentum in the Pindi city with only a week left before Eidul Azha. Shopping malls and markets are showcasing their best collections and making beneficial offers and discounts to entice Eid shoppers. Prices are very high, but they could not dampen the mood of buyers, who are rushing from market to market and browsing around the shops to fix their choices before picking those up finally.

Shops selling ready-made garments, trinkets, shoes and cosmetics are bustling with customers. They are thronging the markets like Ghaghar Plaza, Ramazan Plaza, Rabi Center, China Center, Hong Kong Plaza, Abbas Shopping Mall, and Singapore Shopping Center, Junaid Jamshed outlet, Dubai Plaza, Iqbal Road markets and many others.

Salesmen at different markets say their sales have started to pick up. Sadaf Zaidi, a housewife at Satellite Town residential area on Murree Road, was in fact delighted by the latest collections of fashions at dress shops, but she found prices much higher than the year-ago period. "Traders are charging extra prices seizing the opportunity of Eid," she said as she was shopping at one of the shops of the market.

Qasim Naqi, member of Satellite Town Commercial Market Shop Owners Association said they were committed to serve the customers with quality goods at affordable prices. "If you want high quality goods, you will have to pay high," he said. The traders' leader pledged to take stern action against traders in case of deceiving customers with substandard goods for high prices.

All the markets and shopping centres in the city are drawing huge crowds with the city dwellers and people from outside the city rushing there for collecting dresses and other products of their choices for the Eidul Azha. Makeshift shops on the footpaths are also experiencing large crowds, mainly of the lower-and middle-income-group people.

The shopkeepers, be it in the markets and shopping centres or on the footpaths, display trendy and latest-design dresses to attract the shoppers. The demand for shoes, cosmetics, crockery items, ornaments and home appliances is also high, shopkeepers at different markets in the city said.

Like the previous years, the biggest crowd is seen at the Raja Bazaar, Moti Bazaar, Murree Road shops, Tench Bhatta, and myriad of Saddar lanes. Large crowds are seen everywhere despite inflationary prices. Shoppers are rushing to the electric goods markets at Imperial Market, Liaquat Road and Bara Bazaar for buying all kinds of goods including home appliances while at the Murree Road and Saddar shopping centres for buying shoes and garments.

The shopkeepers, however, said that many of the people visit the markets for window-shopping and they will start buying goods a week before the Eid..