Footwear sales sluggish, craze for Chinese shoes

Badrul Ahsan | Published: July 16, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00

Transactions in the city's footwear outlets are yet to pick up ahead of the holy Eid with locally produced items facing tough competition with Chinese ones, traders said.
They said sales in their shops dropped by more than 40 per cent compared to the corresponding period of last year.
"The sales in our outlets are not at all satisfactory. Usually the traders pass a busy time with customers after Shab-e-Barat but this year we are yet to see such a rush even after the 15th of Ramadan," Abul Hashem, a shop owner at Chowrongi Shopping Centre at Elephant Road told the FE Tuesday.
He said if the trend continues like this for seven more days, most of the shop-owners would fail to repay their bank loans or fail to clear payment of their suppliers.
Munsi Ruhul Amin, another shop owner of New Market area, said higher prices of footwear this year also were behind the poor sales.
"Prices of almost all imported and locally-made shoes have increased up to 50 per cent, compared with the same a year ago. This also has disappointed customers," he added.
Nilima Sultana, a shopper, expressed her disappointment over quality and higher prices of footwear. She said, "Prices of even simple shoes are not less than Tk 1,500 which was around Tk 800 to Tk 900 last year. It is really a burden for the middle and lower middle income group people."
However, after a market visit, the FE correspondent found that imported footwear, mainly from China, is dominating the local market.
According to the shop owners, more than 85 per cent of their showcased shoes are  imported.
Market insiders said better finishing and competitive prices of Chinese footwear always attract shoppers. This also lures the shop owners to showcase imported ones ahead of the Eid-ul-Azha.
"Local producers can neither compete with their overseas rivals in finishing of their products nor in prices. So how can we help them?" Md Razib Dewan, a shop keeper at the city's Polwel Super Market, asked.
"Besides, there are wide ranges of variety of imported shoes which we can never find locally. So we have to depend on imported ones," he added.
However, regarding higher prices of footwear, Mr Dewan said almost all the shopkeepers have their old stock of shoes which they could not sell last year because of political turbulence. Most of those have become damaged due to long-time stocking.
They had to import again this year to cope with the Eid business. "So the cost of shoes would naturally be higher."
Meanwhile, sales at the outlets of the locally reputed brands were also slow though prices did not rise significantly ahead of Eid.
"Customers are found to be very small in number in our showroom compared to that of other years. We are far behind achieving our sales target during the Eid festival," a sales person of BATA shoe's outlet at Dainik Bangla area told the FE.