Outdoor bazaars post sluggish sales this year

CEBU, Philippines - The holidays have prompted bazaars to sprout anywhere in the city giving customers a wide array of options to shop, however, much as the bazaars have benefited consumers, it did not translate to positive sales performance to bazaar owners with sales plunging to as much as 30 percent.

The unpredictable weather conditions coupled with belt-tightening measures have been blamed for the sluggish performance of the outdoor bazaars, specifically during the Christmas and the Sinulog seasons.

Traders from the Sinulog Bazaar located at Jones Avenue, as well as the “Bazaar sa eMall” reported at least 30 percent plunged of average daily sales performance, compared to daily sales generated last year.

“Its hard when it rains, we dont get enough sales that sometimes we can’t even meet our tent rental per day,” said Jasmin Batuan, who traveled all the way from Marawi City to take advantage of the seemingly good business opportunity in Cebu during Christmas, down to Sinulog Festival and all the way to the Chinese New Year.

Batuan, who had been joining the “Bazaar sa eMall” for the past four years now, said that this year’s bazaar has not given them good profits so far.

The “Bazaar sa eMall” organized by Lito Surban, in a short-term rent agreement with the mall management, is located in the facility’s facade. Batuan said although some consumers’ prefer to shop in the bazaar area, stiffer competition, and rainy seasons largely affected their daily sales generation.

Likewise, Normala Langko, who also hails from Marawi reported an average of 30 percent decrease in daily sales performance, compared to last year.

Langko, whose store is selling a wide array of consumer products, such as affordable shoes, sandals, RTW (ready-to-wear) garments, among others, said that in the previous years, specifically in 2010, she generated a much as P10 thousand pesos a day. Now, the biggest sales so far, only reached P7 thousand.

“Maybe because shoppers have wider options now. There are also Bazaars inside the shopping malls, and other areas in the City. But, we are hoping to get-even by February,” said Langko.

Traders from Marawi City that purposely come to Cebu to join outdoor Bazaars to take advantage of the dynamic traffic shopping during Christmas and Sinulog celebrations, allocate more or less P10 thousand for logistics and transportation expenses.

Like the “Bazaar sa eMall,”, the “Sinulog Bazaar” located on the sidewalk stretch along Abellana National High School and Sports Complex, is also charging tenants with P500 a day for rental.

The Cebuano couple Joel and Arlene Miculob whose livelihood is anchored mainly on participating consumer “Bazaars” both outdoor and mall-based, said that being an outdoor shopping facility provides an edge compared to those inside the mall. Aside from higher rental rate in the mall-base bazaar, most consumer prefer to buy in the make-shift bazaars as products are much cheaper with similar quality.

The Miculob couple started their bazaar business with P5,000 capital starting with installing a small shop in Mandaue wetmarket. Now, they are participating in different bazaar activities all over Metro Cebu.

Krisanta David, who called herself “Bazaar shopping fanatic” said she likes to buy things from bazaar finds, because aside from the fact that the items are priced much lower than those in boutiques and shops inside the mall, “there are also unique finds” in the bazaar shops.

David, a call center agent said that together with her friends, they are always on the look out for outdoor bazaars not only during special holidays like Christmas and Sinulog, but also in other ordinary days, of which some organizers do outdoor Bazaar events, like in Cebu IT Park.

“The quality and styles are the same of those sold in the shops inside the mall. What is amazing is, they are priced much lower,” David said in an interview.

Aside from RTW and other consumer goods, the most sought-after service during the Sinulog Festival include temporary Tattoo painting, on-the-spot T-shirt printing.

Native products, and souvenir items seller Carmel Ubalde of Cebu-based at the “Sinulog Bazaar” on the other hand, reported good sales performance because of increased number of foreigner customers that buy souvenir items such as key-chain, native bags, among others.

The over 50 tenants of the “Sinulog Bazaar” started their daily outdoor bazaar business on December 1, 2011 until Febraury 1, 2012.

The “Bazaar sa eMall” on the other hand, was opened since November 15, 2011, and will end on January 20, 2012. (FREEMAN)