Chain shops are so only in names

The concept of chain shops is not indigenous, it is imported from the West. Usually, a businessman used different names for two or more outlets if business flourished and had the money and manpower at his disposal. But still there was the urge to use the brand name in the interest of reputation and quality. Sweetmeat shops in particular went for this chain business. Maronchand, Porabari, Bikrampur, Alauddin are some of the famous sweetmeat brands that used the business practice quite early.
Chain stores of groceries or department stores as they are called are a late addition. The advantage of such stores is that a customer gets almost everything of daily needs under one roof. In the Western countries, the concept has been taken to the inconceivable. A store of a square kilometer size is beyond imagination of any Bangladeshi citizen unless one has visited one such facility in North America or Europe. One can easily get lost in such a mega store. You name anything, it is there. Even fresh arum shoots are available in a supermarket in Canada. Those are flown from the Caribbean islands obviously keeping in mind the demand from the Bangalee community living in that country.
One can rest assured about the quality of produces and products available in such chain shops. It is because of this the small retail shops have almost been on the way out. Kitchen or vegetable and fish markets are a rarity in the highly industrialised and advanced countries. When a US chain shop almost ensured its entry into Indian market, it was staved off at the final stage because the administration thought it would kill the enterprise of small retailers and the farmers who produce vegetables and other commodities. Their monopoly will not be good for economy at the producer level.
In this country, a number of chain grocery-cum-department shops are operating now. They are mainly located in the capital and the port city of Chittagong. How are they faring themselves or serving their customers. Apparently, well-dressed and courteous salesmen/saleswomen and supervisors give the impression that the commodities there too will be class one. Unfortunately, this is not the case most of the time.
Usually chain stores collect produces and products from selected farmers and manufacturing brands. They take care to see that the highest standard of business practice is maintained from the seeding/ fruition to harvesting. When a British superstore collected mangoes from Chapainawabjanj and Satkhira the store trained local farmers to take care of mangoes right from the fruition up to ripening of the fruits.
No such practice is maintained here. The chain stores collect vegetables, fish and other products from wholesale markets like small retailers and take care of packaging or display in a more eye-catching manner. That's all.
That they are not famous for maintaining the highest ethical or business standard is clear from the fact that they are found wanting in maintaining those by mobile courts. The mobile courts slap fines on them for keeping rotten fish, substandard and date-expired commodities. Such an outlet at Shantinagar was fined heavily for the malpractice a few days ago.
What is most deplorable is the assurance they give after each such raid that never again will they take resort to such practices. But then months pass and they are found committing the same crime. If food chains and chain shops of reputed brands continue to violate laws protecting consumer rights, how dangerous it can be at the individual retailer level is anyone's guess.
A shopkeeper or a businessman or a salesman or an owner of a department store or chain shop too is a consumer. Different people are consumers in different capacities and at different points. If they just think of the harm they cause to others, they might draw from introspection the conclusion that they too are administered similar doses of guile and poison by others in their fraternity. It is a national disgrace caused by none other than its own members.
Law is a poor instrument in stopping the mental rot. The time-to-time raids by mobile courts appear to be a mockery because it does not seek to eliminate the root cause. Imposition of fines only inspires the erring businessmen to realize the loss from its consumers. How they do it is their trade secret. But one knows that they have many tricks up their sleeves and somehow or other make up for the losses suffered on account of fines.