Local fashion brands lead despite high price

Al Amin :
The city’s shopping malls are buzzing with Eid shoppers as the largest Muslim festival is closing.
People from all strata are crowding the shops to purchase their most sought after attires and are choosing local fashion brands, despite what the customers said the prices of the local brands are comparatively high this year.
Once upon a time, the dominance of foreign brands in the country’s market was skyrocketed. But the scenario has been changed and the local brands have already occupied the lion share of the fashion market.
The clothes and designs of the local fashion houses are attracting local and foreign buyers.
Aarong, Sailor, Yellow, Twelve, Klubhaus, SaRa, Infinity, Mbrella, Smartex, Cats Eye, Anjon’s, Bibiana, Kay Kraft, Rang, Shadakalo, Nipun, Deshal, Shoishob, Bishwo Rang, La Reve etc are doing well in local and foreign markets.
Visiting different shopping malls and street markets in the city, this correspondent found that shoppers expressed a mixed reaction over the price of attires.
“Local brands are charging much higher prices with standard fabrics by putting additional price on the products and this has enabled the low and middle income people to buy the products,” Atiqur Rahman, who working at private company, told The New Nation.
The shop owners struggled hard to stay afloat since the pandemic hit the country two years ago as the outbreak of the lethal pathogen ate up their sales in all four Eid festivals.
But sales have rebounded in style since the fasting month began and it will continue before Eid-ul-Fitr, which accounts for more than a third of lifestyle retail sales in Bangladesh.
This has extended a much-needed respite to the businesses, which suffered huge losses throughout the pandemic.
Khairul Hasan, works at a bank, came to Bashundhara City Shopping Mall accompanied his wife, said, “This is the first time I have been out shopping at a mall without feeling any fear in the last two years. I am really feeling happy.”
This correspondent went to the Aarong’s outlet in Dhanmondi on Monday and found the outlet very busy with customers.
“An unprecedented number of people are participating in the shopping and people from all income groups are buying products,” said Mohammad Ashraful Alam, Chief Executive Officer of the lifestyle brand.
He said the sales of Aarong, which has 25 outlets, will surpass the pre-pandemic Eid-ul-Fitr sales of 2019 by more than 50 per cent this year.
“We have opened several shops outside Dhaka and the response has been huge. I think people have long been waiting to do shopping in a relaxed manner,” the Aarong CEO said.
About high prices, he said, “The prices of our products have been fixed as per purchasing capacity of the consumers and fabric quality.”
Shahin Ahmed, CEO of Anjons, said that they have tried to determine prices of their product reasonable, although the production cost has been increased significantly.
Most of the shoppers are choosing cotton-based and local brands due to the heat weather, he said.
“We couldn’t do business in the past two years due to the Covid-19 situation, we are hopeful to cover the losses this year as we are getting good response from the customers,” he added.