SHOPPING MALLS IN BANGLADESH

Online shopping means buying a product or service through a web site. A web sites name Amazon.com and Buy.com.By this Web sites consumer can buy all shorts of things. Use online, we can buy almost everything like- electronics to jewelry, cloths to books, and cars to appliance and so on. For this we have to subscribe our favorite newspaper or magazine online, hunt for antiques and order complete holiday meals for delivery on our doors. We also buy and sell items of all kinds on auction sites. There are thousands of consumer web sites and each has its own look, feel, and approach to customer satisfaction.

Online shopping would be very difficult if merchants did not provide easy- to-use catalogs on their Web sites. In the early day to e-commerce, many retailers struggled to come up with catalogs that were user friendly for customer and easy to manage.

Mohakhali is an important and busy area in Dhaka city. Many important offices and institutions are located here. Mohakhali Bus terminal is one of the important terminals of Dhaka city. Every day thousands of people, particularly from greater Mymensingh region, travel by this bus terminal. Moreover, the first flyover-bridge of the country was built at the Mohakhali rail crossing to reduce traffic-jams, which characterize the Bangladesh transportation sector.

Mohakhali General Market is situated beside the flyover bridge close to the Dhaka-Mymenshingh highway. Once it was a hawker’s market but in 1983 the Dhaka City Corporation built a two-storied modern building as part of the market. There are now 216 shops on two floors of this market that sell fish, meat, vegetables, eggs, rice and all kinds of daily needs on the ground floor and groceries, stationery, garment accessories, electric items on the second floor. A mosque is located on the first floor of this market.

Once this general market was heavily but numbers have declined because of traffic congestion and competition from nearby markets. Although the Mohakhali General Market has lost it previous popularity it still has a great impact on the daily life of Mohakhali and nearby areas.

Many open-air fruits shops are found in front of Mohakhali General Market. A number of floating shops and hawkers are also seen on the road side area where low-prices goods, sunglasses, watches, toys, fashion items, shoes, belts, books, magazine, CDs and cassette are sold. However, the front side of the market has become very crowded because a small bus stop is located here for city services and long distance travel as well. As a consequence some restaurants and tea-stalls are busy catering to the local bus passengers. The bus stop also attracts a number of beggars who move around to hunt the passengers. At nighttime the place has become a shelter for homeless people.

Everyday the market opens at 7:00 AM and closes at 9:00 PM.

Farmgate is a busy focal point in Dhaka City. It has been an important market area since Dhaka began to modernise. Bus, CNGs and rickshaws connect Farmgate to all important places in Dhaka City. It is, in short, a major communication hub for Dhaka.

Farm View, Shezan Point, Mahbub Plaza and many other multistory modern shopping centres are located here as well as a large street market. This is one of the biggest street markets in Dhaka City and everyday large numbers of people gather in Farmgate to conduct business. They buy their necessary products from the street market and other commodities (which are usually cheap) in this street market. There are all kinds of cloths, toys, ladies’ and gents’ fashion products, electronic items, plastic items, crockery and all necessary things needed in family and personal life on sale here. Tea-stalls, restaurants, fast food outlets, juice shops, pan and cigarette shops and a number of hawkers are also found in this area all time. Farmgate Street Market has a great significance for contemporary life of Dhaka City. The market starts at 7:00 AM and closes at 10:00 PM each day.

Beside the market there is a nice small park in this area, which is a good place for the wayfarers to rest and refresh and enjoy themselves.

Banarashi and Jamdani are examples of the world finest Muslin cloth, which are of the proud of Bangladeshi heritage of weaving. Banarashi is an artistic, immaculately hand made sari cloth which is generally used for creating Bengali women’s wedding dresses, whereas the Jamdani is widely used by the elite classes for special event saris. Paradoxically this fine Bangladeshi cloth is hand woven by Pakistani refugees in

Mirpur Geneva Camp. Initially there were no showrooms or shops for the weavers to sell direct to customers. They made and supplied materials for sale in different cloth shops throughout Dhaka City. Unfortunately they did not get a fair price for their work, which led the weavers to establish their own retail outlets. In 1980 Banarashi Polli began with five shops. Now there are more than 150 shops where 800 artists work directly.

Mirpur Banarashi Polli is the only Banarashi market in the country. Basically three types of sari cloth are on offer - Jamdani, Katan and silk. Jamdani is the finest, most artistic and aristocratic sari cloth, which carries the tradition of world famous muslin first created in Dhaka in the sixteenth century. Everyday many wholesale and retail customers come here from Dhaka and other parts of the country to purchase cloth. Businessmen also take orders for making Banarashi to the customer’s specific design and requirements. The price range for Banarashi is TK. 2000-70000 and depends of the design work and cloth quality. Banarashi is now exported to India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and some other Asian countries.

Kawran Bazaar is the biggest and most famous wholesale general market in Dhaka City. All kinds of vegetables, fish, rice and other commodities are supplied to the small markets from here. At the end of eighteenth century Kawran Singh, a Marwari merchant, first established the bazaar in the in Nineteenth Century. It was later was extended and developed into 1255 stores, of which 55 are owned by Dhaka City Corporation.

There is no holiday in the market, which operates a 24 hours a day but the early morning is the peak hour for the wholesale and fish markets. Starting at 12 A.M, all night the vegetables and goods come from around the country. Many trucks and pick-ups carry and bring commodities here from different places. The gathering of clients becomes concentrated in the early morning, around 4-7 O’clock, when the small markets open. As many clients watch movies during the nights, the restaurants of Kawran Bazaar are opens 24 hours, and sell delicious Bangla dishes. Comparatively the price of food in these restaurants is high. A residential hotel, tea-stalls, pan and cigarettes shops can be found at the bazaar.

Many prominent newspapers, TV stations, media centers, government agencies and multinational companies’ head offices are situated in the Kawran Bazaar area. The five star hotel Pan Pacific Sonargaon is situated just nearby the bazaar.

Globalization and modernization, have had an impact on Dhaka city architecture. This can be seen in the design of markets and the market motif, manifested in consumerism as a life style and a culture. Within the past few years many shopping malls have been established and global brand products have become widely available, which in turn has an impact on the quality of local products. The modern markets and the products they sell are the most obvious examples of the influence of the West on contemporary urban Bangladesh.

The Metro Shopping Mall of Dhanmondi is a popular shopping mall for fashion products. The main clients of the market the rich young generations as all shop sale high price products and emphasize the quality of their goods. Metro plays an important role in changing the fashion, life view and style of Dhaka.

This luxurious shopping mall was established in 2002 on Mirpur Road, Dhanmondi, just behind the Bangamandu Memorial Museum. Metro is a six-storied shopping center where each floor has forty-one shops. It is famous for ready made garments, jewelry, shoes, cosmetics and fashion items for ladies and gents. The top two floors are occupied with electronic shops selling, CDs, VCDs, mobile phones and mobile accessories.

Rajdhani Super Market is the best-known market for women fashion products of the Dhaka City. Mostly middle and lower middle class woman frequent it as all type products; household commodities and cooking utensils are available in the market.
Covering a huge area at Tikatoli the market was established by the Muktijudha Kolan Trust (Freedom Fighter Welfare Trust) under the Ministry of Muktijuddo (Freedom Fighters Welfare). Within this huge market there is a wide range of products available at reasonable prices, which attracts a large clientele.
There are 1200 shops were saris, fashion garments, shoes, clothe, dress design material, cosmetics and cooking utensils are available. Initially Indian-made products dominated this market but now it is the Chinese product that dominates along with locally made goods.
Based on the market tea stall idea, Bangla fast food restaurants have been established in the market area, As it is now Ramadan, they are hidden by cloth, but inside of the stall the people, particularly the younger generation who don’t fast, take food. Opening time for the market is 9.00 morning and it closes at 10.00 at night. Friday is the weekly holiday of Rajdhani Market.

This market was established in 1981 by government, and is controlled by Dhaka City Corporation. There are 150 shops in the market. There is also a newly built market called Notun Krishi Bazaar, nearby where garments, groceries, stationery, vegetables and fish are sold at reasonable prices.

There are almost 500 shops in the Notun Krishi Market. Along with a general fashion corner there are separate fish, meat and poultry corners. In the fashion corner clothes, cosmetics, toys, gifts, crockery, clocks, electronics, jewelry, plastic items and household products are sold. In front of market there are also many Bangla food restaurants, pharmacies, tea-stalls, cigarette shops and fruit shops as well as a mobile kebab shop.

Mohammadpur Krishi Market and the new general market are comparatively big government markets. Friday is a half-day and Saturday is a full holiday for Krishi Market but the new general market remains open at all times. The Krishi Market is situated in the under developed suburb of Mohammadpur in Dhaka City. The Krishi Market is famous for rice wholesaling. Once the area was considered as a crime zone but now through a government initiative the situation has changed. Rice is supplied to neighboring market and shops from Krishi Market.

BCS Computer City is the biggest computer market in Bangladesh. The mall opened in 1999 with 100000 square feet of space, situated at Agargaon, She-e-Bangla Nagoor district of Dhaka City. There are 322 modern computer and accessories shops located in the mall, which is perceived to be tat the cutting edge of technology and development in Bangladesh.
Like other developing nations, the digital divide in Bangladesh is prominent, but the computer city has made access to technology, particularly the young generation, much easier. However, problems remain. There are real problems with the high price of computers and the English base of most computing makes it inaccessible to most people. To overcome these problems the Bangladesh government has declared it will create a Digital Bangladesh by providing the technology for all.
The businessmen of the computer city, however, control the introduction of computer technology to the country through their contracts on brand name products. Hardware, software, computer, laptops, DVD, movie, Internet and computer magazine are the common products on sale in this market. A nineteen storey ultra modern building called IDB Bhaban is attached to BCS Computer City. Friday is the holiday for this market.