One big mall avenue, Indian Express, Lucknow (25 March, 2007)

No 4 coming next month, but is Lucknow ready for retail boom? Newsline checks out



Shirin Abbas
Lucknow, March 24: PACO Rabanne, Bvlgari, Calvin Klein, Kenzo, Davidoff, YSL, Titto Bluni, Caroline Herera, Versace, Mont Blanc, Bossini, Max and counting¿ You name it, and the city’s malls have it.

With Lucknow’s fourth mall — the Riverside (Ladhani) Mall — starting operations by April-end, the City of Nawabs finally seems to have jumped on the brand-wagon.

While East End Mall and Saharaganj ushered the mall culture, Fun Republic Mall recently lent it a true-blue hue.

Like Fun Republic has done with Shopper’s Stop, Riverside, too, plans to lease out three floors to the multi-brand, multi-utility store ‘Pyramid’ for a food court and dedicated floors for a four-screen Inox multiplex.

But, is Lucknow ready for the retail boom?

Ryoshin Tokunaga, marketing manager of Citizen, opening the ‘First Citizen’ store at Fun Republic, said: “Metropolitan cities are saturating and I think it is time we moved to growing metros like Lucknow. The market here is still untapped. We see an annual investment of about Rs 10 crore flowing into the state from our company alone, with more stores opening in other cities, too.”

Vasant Kumar, president, Max, which opened its fashion, footwear and accessory store at Fun Republic on Friday, dismissed the perception that shopping in branded stores is an expensive proposition. “After Agra, this is our second store in UP, and we have great expectations from it.”

The Dubai-based firm evolves Spring-Summer, Festival and Fall-Winter collections annually on the lines of international palette that are forwarded to its India team of designers in Bangalore. The clothes are then tweaked to suit Indian sensibilities. “While brand consciousness earlier revolved mostly around Mumbai and- Delhi, the multinational boom has today raised aspirational levels in smaller cities,” Kumar said.

“The same environment is now present in what were earlier smaller cities. Today, a customer in Gomtinagar is as aware of trends as her counterpart at Kamla Nagar in Delhi.

“Lucknow always had taste but the choices were more ethnic. The mall culture has refined that to a more global silhouette.”

Suryavir Singh, spokesperson of Sahara Infrastructure & Housing, which built Saharaganj mall, said entry of global and high-end Indian brands changed the way Lucknow shopped. “Till just some years ago, people here went to Delhi and Mumbai to buy branded designs. But with exposure, the taste and habits of people here have undergone a sea change, as evident from the fact that most branded stores are doing brisk business.”

For Max’s Vasanth Kumar, this is just tip of the iceberg. Organised retail accounts for only about seven per cent spends in cities like Lucknow and under 10 per cent for metros.

With Singapore Mall, Fortuna’s City Mall near CMS-Gomtinagar and another one set to open soon on Faizabad Road, the going is set to get bigger.