Srinagar, June 10: Amid melodious music concerts in the landscaped lawns, Srinagar Development Authoritys prestigious shopping plaza Sangarmaal City centre witnessed a new life Sunday as thousands thronged the place marking beginning of the festival.
On day one around 30,000 people including tourists made it to Sangarmaal Shopping Festival, which offers exhibition of historic artifacts, sale of rare handicrafts, besides discount offers on routine shopping of items like apparels, crockery and jewelry.
Its the first ever festival at the state-of- the-art shopping complex inaugurated on June 5, 2010 by Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who had termed it the best mall in the City.
The shopkeepers said the sales remained phenomenal on the first day of the event. Business remained really good. And to attract more of customers we are offering discounts, said the man who runs Shagun, a ladies garments shop at the mall.
Almost all the shops remained abuzz with customers many of whom didnt miss to take pictures in the fashionable mall, which has ample parking space.
A major attraction of the event remained exhibition of rare traditional Kashmiri artifacts by prominent educationist Ateeqa Banu.
The crowds went nostalgic about the past by looking at things like Doli, locally called Zampaan and jewelry and clothing of the past.
All such items will remain open for public everyday from 10 am to 10 pm daily, the organizers said.
Engineer HF Durrani of Peerbagh said it was his first visit to the mall. I am really amazed and will surely bring my family along here again, he said while relishing ice-cream at the outlet run by Baskin and Robins.
Many of the customers were curious to know about the start of a mega exhibition of exotic attires Finesse of Traditions the lifesize hoardings of which could be seen there. Its organizers said the exhibition branded clothing was likely to start Tuesday.
Meanwhile the SDA people had kept elaborate arrangements for parking, power backup and other support facilities including escalators.
Officials said the festival was likely to continue for around a fortnight.
The SDA VC while making a round of the shopping festival didnt miss to visit every shop and asked the shopkeepers to make the best use of the event by throwing discount offers in real sense.
Customers should feel satisfied that the shopping remained a good deal because ultimately it will reflect your conduct as a businessman, he told the shopkeepers asking them to put on discount stickers on their glass facades.
Meanwhile at the musical concert apart from prominent singers, upcoming talent was given a chance to perform on the stage. The entry to the live concerts and the shopping festival is free.
The Shaam-e-Gazal program and various substantial music items will be part of the event till 21 of this month in the open theater at Sangarmaal lawns which has been decorated with fountains with the background music mesmerizing thousands visitors.
Lastupdate on : Sun, 10 Jun 2012 21:30:00 Mecca time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 10 Jun 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Mon, 11 Jun 2012 00:00:00 IST
Israel forms two lines over shopping on the Sabbath - Los Angeles Times
But among the first visitors many Saturdays is a city inspector, who goes store to store issuing $200 citations to business owners for violating Tel Aviv's ordinance against conducting commerce on the Jewish Sabbath.
Small-shop owners fire off cellphone text messages to warn one another that the inspector is making the rounds; then they chase out customers and shut their doors until he passes. Larger chains shrug off the ticket as a cost of business, far overshadowed by the profits they stand to make. A single pair of jeans at the Levi's store costs more than the fine.
Hoping to cash in on Israelis' growing affluence and lust for shopping, malls, retailers, restaurants and cinemas are throwing open their doors on Saturdays. But the trend butts up against longtime government restrictions and infuriates religious groups that want the day preserved as one of rest.
Though national law prohibits employing Jews on Saturday, enforcement has been sporadic, usually depending on the religious conviction of the sitting labor minister, according to public policy expert Guy Ben-Porat at Ben-Gurion University. Some cities also have laws against conducting business on Saturday, though Supreme Court rulings have upheld the right of certain types of commerce, including gas stations and cinemas.
It's among the many secular-religious debates dividing Israelis. But while most such clashes end up at the government's doorstep, the battle over shopping on the Sabbath is largely being dictated by the pocketbook, as retailers balance potential profits with a backlash, or boycotts, by the ultra-Orthodox.
On one side are secular and religiously tolerant consumers and business owners, who have reaped much of the benefit of Israel's recent economic growth and view the country as a modern, Western-leaning society along the lines of the United States or much of Europe.
"Tel Aviv calls itself the 'city that never sleeps,'" said Nirit Oren-Sternberg, owner of a designer home furnishings store at the Port. "So it's outrageous that we get fined for being open on Saturday. Israelis love shopping. They work hard all week and this gives them an opportunity to shop on the weekend. If someone finds that offensive then they don't have to come."
The crowds that pack the Port and the 30 other malls now open Saturdays around the country suggest that many Israelis agree. On average, retailers who open on Saturday say the day accounts for 40% of their weekly sales. As many as half a million Israelis hit the malls every Saturday, according to industry estimates.
"Saturday can be a massive day," said Ofer Shechter, chief executive of ProMall, which manages 35 malls, half of which are now open on Saturday. "The motivation is money."
On the other side are leaders of Israel's small but politically influential ultra-Orthodox community, known as haredim. They point to biblical commands about observing the Sabbath and ask: If Israel doesn't honor them, who will?
"We have no right to the land of Israel without observing the Torah and its commandments," said Shmuel Pappenheim, a spokesman for an umbrella group of haredi organizations. "If we don't follow it and preserve the Sabbath, we might as well give up our claim and give it to the Arabs."
Haredi leaders are seeking to slow the trend of shops opening on Saturdays by flexing their own economic muscle. The community has enjoyed success on some issues, pressuring private bus companies to provide separate seating for men and women and phone makers to offer so-called kosher cellphones that restrict Internet access and text messaging.
With an estimated $1.5 billion in annual buying power, the haredi community set up the Shabbat Committee in 2006 to monitor Sabbath observation and boycott businesses that ran afoul of its rules.
Their biggest target so far is businessman Dudi Weissman, who operates a chain of 24-hour markets called AM:PM. He also owns a supermarket chain, Shefa Shuk, that does about 40% of its business with the haredim.
Though AM:PM stores have always remained closed on Saturday in ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods, the Shabbat Committee demanded that Weissman close all of his stores on the Sabbath. When he refused, they called for a boycott of his supermarkets. Since then, some of the stores have shut down, though company officials have said the closures were unrelated to the boycott.
Weissman declined to comment, as did leaders of the Shabbat Committee. To date, most of his AM:PM stores remain open on Saturdays, leading even supporters of observing the Sabbath to question whether the effort succeeded.
"Boycotts are ineffective," said Yakov Halperin, head of a mall-based optometry chain that closes all of its 130 offices on Saturday, even though it costs the company significant revenue. "They work for a limited time, but then they break down because the religious public is not united."
Still, there is a chilling effect. Haifa-based Cinemall, a large shopping complex on the outskirts of the port city, is considering becoming the latest mall to open on Saturdays, perhaps this fall. But the owner is hesitating, in part out of personal religious beliefs, a mall manager said. Business rivals noted that he also owns a supermarket chain that could be vulnerable to a boycott.
Religious activists have succeeded in keeping most malls that are in city centers and near residential neighborhoods closed. Nearly all the shopping centers currently open on Saturday are in industrial zones or along the city edges. In religious cities, like Jerusalem, only a few restaurants, cinemas and gas stations dare to open.
But experts predict more shops will open on Saturdays as competition intensifies.
"If you look at the trends, secularization is winning big time in this case," said Ben-Porat, who has studied the intersection of religion and business for years. "Just 20 years ago you could hardly find anything open in the country on Saturday."
He said the trend was bolstered in the 1990s, when Israel shifted away from socialism and experienced an influx of more than 1 million Russian immigrants, many of whom were secular or non-Jewish.
"Ultimately this is an issue that is moving away from the political realm," Ben-Porat said. "It's really being decided by profits, not ideology and not public policy."
Batsheva Sobelman of The Times' Jerusalem bureau contributed to this report.
Shopping molls flee to Spain after Harrods theft - Daily Record
Jun 10 2012 By Russell Findlay, Sunday Mail
Generic Harrods image
POLICE hunting shopping molls Annette Daniel and Jean McGovern fear the thieves have fled to Spain.
The career criminals decided to sun themselves on the Costa del Sol while the heat is on at home.
We told last week how Daniel, McGovern and three gang members were being probed over a £24,000 designer dress theft from Harrods.
CCTV images of the gang at work in the posh store in London’s Knightsbridge have been passed to the Metropolitan Police.
But the prime suspects in the robbery have now fled the UK for Marbella.
One source said: “The heat caused by the Harrods job is intense and they decided to get out as quickly as possible.
“They’ll have to return at some point but I don’t think they will be in a hurry. If I was a shopkeeper in Marbella, I’d be keeping my eyes peeled for a pair of middle-aged Scottish women.”
Marbella has a string of designer stores including Carte Ingles in Puerto Banus, which carries top lines such as Prada and Tommy Hilfiger.
Last week we revealed four Roberto Cavalli and Ralph Lauren frocks had been nicked from Harrods. The store – feared by thieves for its stringent security – didn’t notice they were missing until the following day.
Daniel, 50, and McGovern, 45, who both have lengthy criminal records, are suspected of conducting the theft with gang members Roberta Burke, 48, Julie Tomlin, 32, and John Thomson.
The pair – members of Glasgow crime clans – run a team of professional thieves who travel around the UK.
U.S. wholesale stockpiles grew in April - Crescent-News
WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. wholesale businesses restocked faster in April, responding to a strong gain in sales. The increase could be a good sign for economic growth in the April-June quarter.
The Commerce Department says stockpiles grew 0.6 percent at the wholesale level in April, double the March gain. Sales by wholesale businesses jumped 1.1 percent in April, nearly three times the March sales gain.
Stockpiles at the wholesale level stood at $483.5 billion in April. That's 25.6 percent above the post-recession low of $384.9 billion in September 2009.
It would take roughly five weeks to exhaust all wholesale stockpiles at the April sales pace. That's considered a healthy time frame and suggests businesses will keep restocking to meet demand.
When businesses step up restocking, they order more goods. That generally leads to increased factory production and higher economic growth.
Slower growth in inventories held back growth in the January-March quarter. In the first three months of this year, the economy grew at an annual rate of 1.9 percent.
The increase in wholesale inventories was bigger than economists had forecast. That could signal that inventory growth will pick up and boost economic growth in the April-June quarter.
But stockpile growth largely depends on the spending habits of U.S. consumers and businesses.
Weaker job creation in April and May could force some to scale back spending. And pay has risen just 1.7 percent over the past 12 months. That's slower than the rate of inflation for that period.
Sluggish job growth and weak pay raises threaten to drag on consumer spending, which would weaken growth.
Consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of economic activity.
One positive change: Gas prices have tumbled since early April. That could give Americans more money to spend on appliances, vacations and other discretionary purchases.
Many businesses cut back on restocking last summer fearing that the economy was on the verge of another recession.
When it became clear that it wasn't, they raced to rebuild stockpiles and keep pace with consumer demand.
Stockpiles at the wholesale level account for about 27 percent of total business inventories. Stockpiles held by retailers make up about one-third of the total. Manufacturing inventories represent about 40 percent of the total.
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