SHOPPERS, PLEASE STOP

Is the dress you brought at your favourite mall, brand new? It could have been a part of an exchange offer or even on a TV show!

Is the dress you brought at your favourite mall, brand new? It could have been a part of an exchange offer or even on a TV show! Read on to know how retail therapy could boomerang on you
It8217;s the perfect place to indulge. The soft light bouncing off the texturednbsp;weave of that classic black suit you8217;re admiring, the feel-good crunch of the starched shirt beneath your fingers, the approving smile of the store attendant, the scent of new hanging in the air like a trailing G-sharp. For those of you who look upon tottering out of your favourite retail store under the delicious weight of shopping bags as therapy, here8217;s a shocker: there may be nothing new in them. That8217;s right. As if it wasn8217;t enough that clothes came to you after endless trials and much huffing and puffing8212;your lacy lingerie could have been through the same route too8212;there8217;s a good chancenbsp;they werenbsp;8216;exchanged8217; by another customer who read the fine print: exchange after 15 days from sale is against store policy.

With the apotheosis of the consumer, no shop window dare sport the ultimate turn-off: the all-sales-final sign. There are now several ingenious variations of the returned-with-thanks modus operandi. Buying a birthday present, for instance, almost always entails an 8216;exchange8217;8212;be it a hardback from one of the fashionable book cafes dotting India8217;s metros or anbsp;block printednbsp;totenbsp;bag from a street bazaar. Looking a gift horse in the mouthnbsp;all too often does seem to be the precursor to gift certificates.nbsp;

Make no mistake, no ums and ahs punctuate such nimble barters. Your mouth hangs open when a college goer confesses to having exchanged a bottle of black nail enamel she had bought just the previous day from a local store8212;8221;The lacquer on the frame of my glasses had chipped, it needed a coat of paint,8221; says Shilpa, a Delhi University student, matter-of-factly8212;for a more wearable beige, deploring that 8220;it just wouldn8217;t dry8221;.nbsp;Another student name withheld on request, pursuing a bachelor8217;s degree in botany from Chennai, says he recently bought a kurta from one of the snazzy textile houses in T Nagar and after flaunting it at a family gathering, exchanged it the next day for collegewear.

Sumathi Doraiswamy, a 60-year-old housewife who has lived in the city8217;s busy shopping district for over two decades, observes thatnbsp;festival-time sales8212;the 8216;aadi8217; month festival is on now8212;are a boon fornbsp;the consummate trickster. The milling madness of T Nagar8217;s multi-storey apparel showrooms, each of whichnbsp;draws over 30,000 footfalls on an average day and millions on the run-up to a festival, can indeednbsp;leave the most seasoned shopaholic gasping for breath. Though stores say they need the tag to be intact, a bill of purchase usually suffices for an exchange8212;for which a defect is only one of the reasons a consumer may cite. Thanks to the consumer rights revolution, the threat of redressal looms large on the retail horizon. Over 30 lakh cases have been filed in the consumer courts at the national, state and district levels since their inception two decades ago, of which a good 88 per cent have been settled. Says Anshul Narayan, a Supreme Court advocate, 8220;Consumer protection forums are active bodies. The Delhi District Forum alone gets about 1,000-1,200 cases in a month, most of which are settled within six months.8221;

Innbsp;a market upended by product liability and consumer empowerment, it is the retailer8217;s responsibility to make shopping a pleasant experience. And even as malls sprout like wildflowers in every corner of the country, loungers take only half of George Harrison8217;s refrain8212;Won8217;t you try some/ Baby won8217;t you buy some8212;seriously. Select City Walk Mall, an upmarket shopping haunt in south Delhi that houses 500 national and international brands, gets a footfall of 15,000-18,000 onnbsp;a weekday and 35,000-40,000 on a Saturday or a Sunday. According to Select Citywalk8217;s CEO Rajeev Duggal, 45 per cent of these translate into sales8212;a high conversion ratio by Indian mall standards. Thenbsp;Tommy Hilfiger store in the mall8212;the brand8217;s number one showroom in the country8212;that gets about 12,000 footfalls in a month, sells justnbsp;less than 2,500 pieces. High-profit margins may compensate for the low volume of sale, but the customer stands doubly disadvantaged8212;paying more for a dress that has probably made many rounds of thenbsp;communal changingnbsp;room.

Stores have other ways of settling scores, though, and not just with their pricing strategy. Big brands lend clothes to models for photo-shoots for as long as a week on the caveat that they be returned without any telltale signs of wear. Says Shashank Jani, general manager, Major Brands, in charge of the India operations of international brands like Mango and Aldo, 8220;We lend 50-60 Mango outfits to almost a dozen magazines on a regular basis every month and about 20 outfits a week to TV channel presenters.8221; The pieces are later sold to unsuspecting customers who wouldnbsp;shell out a cool Rs 4,000 for anbsp;plain summer dress, he admits.

Geetha Prabhuram, a 36-year-old resident of Noida who was shopping atnbsp;a Guess outlet in Delhi, was visibly appalled when informed of this practice. 8220;Even if dry-cleaned,nbsp;clothes that have already been wornnbsp;by a model wouldn8217;t be as good as new. Perhaps not being a size zero is your best bet,8221; she said.
Urban India8217;s buyer-centric metanarrative leaves a few loose ends. The consumer is not always right, and he certainly does not have the last laugh. A permissive shopping culture may spell many-happy-returns, but when he is sold a half-empty can of deodorant8212;for want of a tester, most shops in your local market will allow a sample spray from a can meant for sale8212;he8217;s all righteous indignation.