Demonetisation may have taken a toll on sales everywhere, but this is certainly not true for outlets of a retail chain in the city that have been witnessing an unprecedented surge of people over the past two days.
Taking a break from standing in front of ATMs for cash, people stood for nearly three hours to shop in the outlets on the concluding day of a three-day mega sale on Sunday.The mega offer, that allows a person to shop for apparels worth `5,000 by paying `2,000, and also get freebies like a shirt and `1,000 gift voucher, was on at all the outlets of Brand Factory across the city.Sources in the store said that as sales took a hit after demonetization, the bumper offer was floated to get rid of piling stocks. When TOI visited a few outlets, a majority of them had the board `store closed, stock over' displayed outside by 2 pm.
Sahil Mohammed, an architect, was among the many who stood patiently outside the Banjara Hills outlet for over an hour just to get entry into the store. A few people even came from far away areas just to avail of the bumper sale offer. "Before coming to the Banjara Hills outlet, I went to the LB Nagar, Nagole and Abid's outlet. There was heavy rush everywhere and I was unable to get in anywhere," said Suman Ramavath, a student who came all the way from LB Nagar to Banjara Hills.
Some shoppers had plans of making purchases of up to `15,000. "My friend's wedding is coming up next month. I planned to shop from the store not only for myself but also for my friend and her groom," said Vignesh Vaitla, a software engineer from Kukatpally.
Due to the heavy rush at all outlets, the retail chain had to appoint bouncers for crowd management. "There were nearly 2,000 people who visited the outlet today on a concluding day. It became difficult for us to manage the crowd as the outlets turned into fish markets within no time," said a bouncer on condition of anonymity.