The shopping in the capital’s footpaths ahead of the Eid festival, less than two weeks away, has not yet gained momentum because of high price of items.
The rush of the low income group, main customers of the footpaths’ stalls, was insignificant compared with previous years at the city’s popular footpath shopping spots at Gulistan, Ramna Bhaban, Farmgate, Motijheel and New Market.
Shahana Khatun, a housewife, told New Age that they had to compromise on the Eid shopping because of high price.
She and her husband, a day-labour, had to remain satisfied with buying almost half of the items they had planned to buy.
‘We have bought clothes for our parents but we could not buy for us,’ she said.
Shajahan, peon of a private firm, said nowadays it was getting tougher for the low income group to buy necessary items from footpaths because of exorbitant price.
When many low income people expressed disappointment about their buying capacity, Raju, a vendor at Bangabandhu Avenue, said most of the people were just coming to have a look of the items, not for buying now.
He said his sales were worth around Tk 5,000 daily that is almost half of his target. It seemed that buying capacity of the low income groups had shrunk further, he said.
Abdus Shahid, a panjabee seller at footpath near Zero Point, said he was frustrated with the sales.
The footpath vendors hoped that sale would increase in the coming weeks.
They said a good collection of punjabees, shirts, trousers, salwar kamiz, children’s clothes, saris and other dresses are available at footpath shops.
-With New Age input
