Coimbatore Shopping Festival that took off in the city on Tuesday offers shoppers jewellery, clothes, food products, consumer durables, handicrafts, home needs and more to shop.
Organised by the Coimbatore District Small Industries Association (Codissia) for the seventh year, the nine-day fair has more than 350 stalls put up by sellers from Coimbatore and neighbouring States.
Inaugurating the event at Codissia Trade Fair Complex, V. Lakshminarayanaswamy, president of the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Coimbatore, urged the organisers to take it to the scale of Dubai Shopping Festival.
“Customers will find the shopping festival very useful as they can get everything under one roof. ,” Mr. Lakshminarayanaswamy said.
At a time when people are talking about economic slowdown, this festival will make a change for businesses, said R. Ramamurthy, president of Codissia .
Handmade products
The event is supported by the Central and State Governments as there are several stalls by women self help groups, artisans, and tribal people. “We see this (festival) as a chance to bring our handmade products to the market,” said Sivalakshmi, a Toda tribal from the Nilgiris.
One of the exhibitors, Priya from Optic planet said, “We are part of the festival for the past many years and the response from the public encourages us to come again. We look forward for the same response this year too. Here, optometrists from various hospitals in Coimbatore give free eye tests for the people.”
The festival boosts the sales and enquiries in the shop even after the exhibition, said a furniture dealer from R.S. Puram, who is a regular participant of the shopping festival.
We look forward for Coimbatore Shopping Festival every year, said Deepa, a visitor from Erode.
Apart from entertainment programmes and competitions for children every day, the venue also has a food court, ATMs, and play area for children. The shopping festival is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day and the entry fee is ₹50 a person.
