As customers crowd outlets of leading fashion brands, businessmen of the smaller store say they are unlikely to make much profit during this year’s Pahela Baishakh celebrations.
They blame the political unrest for the below-average sales, mostly of clothes that are 
sold ahead of the Bengali new year. Nevertheless, crowds are seen roaming around the markets in Dhaka city.
“We don’t have a large number of customers for Baishakhi wear this year. The political turmoil has hit the sales,” said Mursalin Bithun, managing director of Kapor-e-Bangla, which has seven outlets across the city. It has come up with over a dozen designs for Baishakhi outfits for women and men. It has a range for children too.
His three fashion stores at Aziz Super Market have a sales target of Tk 3 million up till Pahela Baishakh. But Mursalin fears he may not achieve the target this time. “Ultimately sales may fall by 25 percent compared to the previous year’s sales,” he said.
Aziz Super Market is one of the biggest handloom clothing markets, housing more than 220 outlets of fashion houses. Collectively, their sales are expected to reach about Tk 50 million ahead of Pahela Baishakh.
However, the sales may fall over 20 percent below target, the shop owners said.
During a visit to a few shopping malls on 11 April, it was found that the most sold items of sarees were priced between Tk 900 and Tk 8,000 each. Men’s panjabis cost anything between Tk 500 and Tk 3,000 each.
The price has not increased much this year, the businessmen claimed. “In spite of being low priced, customers are not interested in buying this year,” said Kazi Najibul Alam, proprietor of S2N Style Zone, a new store.
SM Afzal, proprietor of the Lanthon fashion house, which offers up to 35 designs of Baishakhi attire, said he is expecting sales of around Tk 2 million during the festival. He is skeptical about achieving the target.
“As a wholesale house, our buyers from outside Dhaka are not interested in coming all the way due to the political uncertainty,” he said.
Recently, a fashion outlet at Deshi Dosh in Basundhara City shopping mall was seen selling between 6 to 12 sarees, 5 to 10 panjabis, and 4 to 8 three-piece shalwar kameez sets, on an average day. However, businessmen were not happy with the trends, according to most of Deshi Dosh outlets. Of course, they concurred, sales would increase twice or thrice over in the final hours before the festival.
“Sales usually start in the middle of March but this year people only started coming to the market from the beginning of April, thanks to prolonged political turmoil,” said a disgruntled sales executive of Deshi Dosh.
He pointed out that the sales would have crossed the last year’s record, had there been stability in the country.
Still, many people were seen at the sales outlets.
Pahela Baishakh has become one of the main seasons of increased sales and many businessmen make the major portion of their profits during the Baishakh celebrations.
“Ten years ago, Baishakh sales were confined to affluent city dwellers. Now it has become an Eid-like sales and we try to make brisk business during this period,” said Shahidul Islam, manager at Banglar Mela, who has been working at fashion houses for a decade now.
-Prothom Alo
