JEDDAH, 28 November 2004 — After being kept busy for two months the shopkeepers in the city’s cloth market are twiddling their thumbs waiting for customers. During Ramadan and the month before Ramadan, the same shops were packed with people, looking for bargains or just snapping up the latest in fashions. This kept the shopkeepers on their toes for hours as they enjoyed the constant ring of the till.
But within days after Ramadan, many shop owners here are waiting for buyers. Cloth shops in Madinah central area, around the holy mosque, too are witnessing the same phenomenon with pilgrims and visitors leaving the city after a busy Ramadan and Eid holiday.
This was not the case in the early years with the shoppers continuing to shop well after the Eid holidays. With the purchasing powers of many families on the decline, the shop owners too are feeling the pinch despite making their usual bargain offers.
Eid Al-Harbi, a storeowner in Madinah, told Arab News, “The month after Ramadan is a famous ‘dead business month’. We reduce our prices by 50 percent to attract customers. Ramadan this year was one of the best years of business. We attracted more locals, visitors and pilgrims. But business declined by more than 70 percent after Eid, which is normal. Ramadan and Eid are over, visitors and pilgrims have left or are in the process of leaving the city. The business activities will pick up as Haj approaches.”
In Jeddah, Muhsin Al-Ali, a storeowner in downtown Balad, said, “There is no need to panic. The market will pick up soon before Haj, when more pilgrims arrive. It is not only the cloth market that is affected, but also the market in general. We use this time, when the market is down, to prepare for another season — the Haj. We could not breathe in the store during the last five days before Eid. Now, sometimes only seven people enter the store for the entire day and I will be lucky if two of them bought something.”
There are people who take advantage of the drop in prices in the cloth market. Naser Mustapha said: “During Ramadan and Eid, there was no way that I could bargain with the shopkeeper, who, apart from not having time on his hands, was sure that another buyer would snap up the goods. I saved my money and will use it to pick up a bargain. Invariably I end up with good stuff because most stores want to get rid of their old products and replace them with new ones for Haj. So I get what I want at a cheap price.”
