Kolkata: Mall footfall, sales soar on Black Friday weekend – Times of India

Kolkata: It is not revenge shopping but the post-Covid philosophy of ‘living for today’ that has led to the phenomenal turnout of customers and even higher transactions during the Black Friday Sale weekend, mall operators said on the concluding day of the three-day event on Sunday.
If Friday evening’s footfall in malls was encouraging, Saturday was good. Sunday was even better with the facilities recording a 30%-40% hike in footfall over the previous weekend and a huge jump in sales. Of the five large malls in the city that responded to queries, only one — Acropolis — reported a dip in footfall this weekend over the previous one. That was primarily due to a combination of two factors: a food festival last weekend had drawn big crowds; and only a quarter of the stores took part in BFS this year.
“Those stores that participated in the BFS clocked very good sales. This is a clarion call to others to also participate in the event in future,” said Acropolis mall general manager K Vijayan.
South City, Quest and the two City Centre malls had better participation and reaped dividends with all of them reporting record November footfall over the weekend. Usually, sales are low in November after the festival season high. This year, there have been record sales during Durga Puja and Diwali.
“On Sunday, we clocked the highest footfall this season. The car park that can accommodate 1,500 vehicles filled up in the afternoon. This year, BFS did better than 2019 with sales at least 40% higher than three seasons ago. Against last week, we clocked a three-fold jump in sales,” said South City mall VP Manmohan Bagree.
At Quest, a luxury mall with discerning buyers where customer count is usually steady, the BFS weekend saw a sharp spike in footfall. “Luxury brands have done very well. I think people have decided to live it up. How else can one explain retail doing well for 15-16 months on the trot,” remarked Quest mall VP Sanjeev Mehra.
The two City Centre malls, one in Salt Lake and the other in New Town, clocked 30-40% higher footfall over last week and 60-70% higher sales. “BFS is basically a marketing hype. This is not a festive season. Yet, people turned up in large numbers and shopped. It tells you that if you can pull customers to the store, you can convert them into sales,” said Ramesh Pandey, whole-time director of Ambuja Neotia that runs the two malls.