Dhaka's shopping malls struggle with falling footfall as Karnaphuli Garden City shuts down

There was a time when shoppers could be seen waiting outside some of Dhaka's popular shopping malls before the shops even opened. Those days are gone. Business at the malls has slumped under the pressure of inflation, changing shopping habits and several other factors, while trade at temporary footpath stalls is brisk by comparison.

The old, once-prestigious Karnaphuli Garden City in Shantinagar has now closed down altogether amid the customer crisis. The elegant shopping mall once drew large crowds. Traders there said they first began losing customers during the traffic jams caused by flyover construction work. Shoppers who drifted to other malls never came back. Lately, the situation had become so bad that hardly anyone even came in to browse and haggle over prices.

According to the shop owners' association, the mall had 198 shops, of which only 17 were still running when it closed. Its monthly operating cost was more than 1.5 million taka, yet service-charge collections over the past six to eight months came to no more than 100,000 to 150,000 taka a month. Arrears on service charges and electricity bills stood at nearly 40 million taka. The owners have therefore decided to sell the shops, and talks are under way with hospitals, corporate institutions and banks.

Baki Billah Osmani, general secretary of the Karnaphuli Garden City Shop Owners' Cooperative Society, told Ajker Patrika, 'This did not happen in a single day. The situation has worsened slowly over a decade. It began with the coronavirus pandemic. Then came the effects of online marketing, the lack of product variety and growing competition.'

Traders at other once-busy malls such as Eastern Plaza and Rapa Plaza report the same problem. They point to several causes behind the customer shortage: online shops and footpath stalls bear much of the blame, but the pandemic, falling purchasing power, transport problems, a mall in every neighbourhood, the lack of variety in old malls and failure to keep pace with modern marketing have also played a part.

Traders say business has been split as new malls keep opening one after another. Another reason shoppers are leaving the old centres is the lack of variety in goods and services. The newer large malls offer a wide range of products along with well-known brand outlets, food courts and cinemas under one roof. Shoppers accustomed to that now want everything in one place, and the old malls, lacking such facilities, are losing them.

Ziaul Islam, a resident of Moghbazar, confirmed the picture. 'In this area there are Mouchak, Fortune and several other shopping malls like them. But if I buy a shirt from one shop, I cannot find trousers to my liking. I can buy shoes for the children but not the other things the family needs. There is no play area for children or anything to see in these markets. So now I either buy online or go to Jamuna or Bashundhara,' he said.

A visit around New Market, Mouchak in Moghbazar-Malibagh and the area near Jamuna Future Park showed few shoppers inside the markets, but crowded footpath and van-cart markets outside. Clothes, shoes, bags and all kinds of daily necessities are sold there, and many shoppers gather to bargain for lower prices.

Halim Mia, a hawker in the Mouchak market area, said, 'It is the women who are keeping this market alive now. Women come to buy small things like doormats, bathroom jugs and clothes for the maid. Apart from that, the customers who understand shopping hardly come here any more.'

Helal Uddin, president of the Bangladesh Dokan Malik Samity, said, 'One of the main reasons for the customer crisis in shopping malls is that people's incomes have fallen. When people do not have money in hand, they cut back on shopping. Besides, more shopping malls have been built in the country than needed, so competition among shopkeepers has grown.'

Helal Uddin does not attach much importance to the impact of online shopping. In his view, if people have money they will spend it. Without income to spend, shopping will not grow through any channel, online or in person.

SM Ikramul Haque, general manager and office secretary of the e-Commerce Association of Bangladesh (e-CAB), said, 'Online shopping is growing gradually and will grow further in future. Shopping at a mall takes a lot of time, and the chance to save that time is increasing interest in online buying.' But e-CAB could not provide reliable statistics on how much online shopping has grown, so it was not possible to judge exactly how much of the malls' decline is due to online trade alone.

The e-CAB general manager said many people doing business online are not registered members of the association. As a result, it is difficult to say precisely how large the online shopping market has become, though it is clear that shoppers' habits are changing.

Traders say the spread of online shopping is changing the nature of the business. Even as footfall in malls falls, many shops are becoming dependent on online orders, with their showrooms used mainly as warehouses and places to show products to customers. In other words, alongside direct sales, traders are now giving importance to online sales too.

Those involved believe mall traders must adapt to the changed market conditions to survive. Baki Billah, general secretary of the Karnaphuli Garden City shop owners' cooperative, who has learned the hard way, had some advice for others. 'Small and big traders alike must keep pace with the times. They must focus on online-based sales and bring variety to their products. Otherwise, survival will not be possible,' he said.