By Ramesh Mathew/Staff Reporter
Neither a Bollywood nor Hollywood box-office hit seemed to have attracted as many visitors to the country’s cinema halls in recent times as the crowds that flocked to the Dasman Hypermarket in Najma on the Airport road in the last two days.
Long queues of customers waiting to make payments at Dasman Hypermarket yesterday
The hypermarket is closing down operations in the New Year.
In what may be seen as their last bid to make complete use of the 20% discount or more offer on all purchases that the mall operators had announced a couple of days ago as part of their clearance, multitudes of shoppers thronged the hypermarket, in the process turning the place into an ocean of customers, vying one another for discounted goods as well as vital space to move around inside the mall.
Customers literally emptied the shelves of many items, in particular winter clothes, readymade garments, perfumes, chocolates, tinned food, beverages, electronic and electrical goods among others on the first day itself.
Neighbours said the rush triggered traffic jams near the hypermarket on the first day of sale and police had a tough time clearing vehicles. Yesterday was no different either, said a resident in the area.
Inquiries found a large number of the city’s grocers benefiting more than the general public from the clearance sale as they purchased huge quantities of goods at lower prices.
Several customers were also seen returning home empty-handed yesterday as they were not able to endure the long hours in the queue for making payment at the cash counters. One of those who purchased goods worth several hundreds of riyals told he had to wait for more than 90 minutes in the queue. He said he had come in the previous night but returned disappointed owing to heavy crowds.
“Today, I came long before the shop opened at 8 am,” he said.
At least half a dozen grocery operators in and around the city, accompanied by their shop assistants could be spotted amidst the crowds. These men were also seen returning with trolleys full of goods, and some of the retailers were seen busy packing purchased goods, including electronic items on their pick ups parked in the mall’s neighbourhood.
A visit to the shopping centre on the second and last day of clearance sale yesterday found there was an extremely heavy rush for buying goods and even much longer queues at the cash counters.
When quizzed, a staffer at the hypermarket said he had never seen the crowds thronging a place like this before anywhere in the city. He said the customers had virtually emptied the shelves of tinned food items on the first day of sale itself. “Usually, Filipino customers take maximum quantities of tinned food items from this place. However, it was mostly others, including the Arab and South Asian nationalities who made most with the latest offer,” he said.
Some of the visitors, including women, were seen removing biscuits from their wrappers and munching them without any qualms. It was reported that most of the biscuits were sold out on the opening day of the sale.
Never before could one see watches being sold in large numbers at an outlet inside the hypermarket. The shop was swarmed by customers from early in the morning, said one of its salesmen.
An Indian expatriate who is leaving for home on The New Year’s Day was heard ruing his last opportunity. “ I would have waited until Wednesday for making purchases from Dasman, if I had come to know of the sale earlier,” he said.
