Brisk business at city shopping malls, supermarkets

Hiran H. SENEWIRATNE

CHRISTMAS SHOPPING: In most supermarkets and shopping malls in the city of Colombo business is picking up during the festive season. However, there is some anxiety on high electricity prices and narrower profit margins, industry sources said.

Leading supermarkets in town are anticipating a bigger shopping crowd this Christmas and New Year season.

A leading supermarket in town, Laugfs Supermarket, expects customers to grow close to Christmas and New Year. According to its Deputy General Manager T.T Gunasinghe business is picking up but there is some difficulty to survive under current market conditions.

He said that with the high electricity cost they couldn't have reasonable profit margins although the sales are on the increase.

Leading supermarket chain in the country Cargills Supermarket this time is experiencing good growth. The company has, slashed prices on 400 items including 30 essential products to help customers, its Marketing Manager Thushan Amarasooriya said.

He said the company is experiencing reasonable growth compared to last year. They are anticipating a lot of business this festive season in all their all outlets. At present Cargills has 91 supermarkets, 16 convenient centres and one Big City Supermarket, he said.

This year Arpico Supermarkets are also expecting a big crowd. At present they are quite happy with their business one of their spokesmen said.

Further, Keells Supermarkets is also preparing for the coming festive season in a big way and expecting a lot of business in the coming days. Business is picking up like in previous years, its sources said.

However, most of the leading supermarket outlets grumble about high electricity costs which have a tremendous impact on profits.